


Sinners and Saints

by bastardoftherealm



Category: Unus Annus - Fandom, Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Cowboy AU, Happy Ending, M/M, Mutual Pining, Smut, alcohol/mild torture sequence/usage of guns, and you bet your ass there's going to be tension, because i can only write slowburn baybe, but it's cowboys so what can you expect, cudding (but for warmTH nOthIng ELsE), cuddling (but this time it's real and there's still denial), homoerotic wound cleaning, just realized i'm bad at tagging, masquarade because it's legally required that i put one in All of My Works, reformed outlaw!mark, sheriff!ethan, slowburn, they're hunting down an old gang together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:02:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 21
Words: 44,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23176636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bastardoftherealm/pseuds/bastardoftherealm
Summary: When an attractive stranger appears in town offering a job, Sheriff Ethan Nestor can't say no. Especially when the job means that he can finally get revenge on the man that killed his father.
Relationships: Mark Fischbach/Ethan Nestor
Comments: 127
Kudos: 420





	1. Enter: A Stranger

Ethan’s father was barely dead in the ground when the mayor of their hodunk town was pressing a bloodstained sheriff’s badge into his hand. Barely had time to mourn when he fastened it onto his lapel and pushed his pistols into the holsters, gunsmoke still warm in the barrel. 

He was the ripe age of 22 when the outlaw known as a Mr. Iplier shot his father while his gang was robbing a series of homesteads down south. Ethan wasn’t even supposed to be there, he was supposed to be holding down their camp up river, but he was too nervous, too fidgety to just stay still there. 

Backup had been a bad idea. He’d shot the damned bastard, clean in the shoulder, but the rat had gotten his dad clean through the head.

People were calling him Sheriff Nestor before he’d even gotten past the post office into town. The title, even years later, never really fit. He’d fallen into boots that weren’t his, his father’s hat slumped down over his eyes like he was a kid again, head too small to understand the ways of the world.

There was nothing but revenge on his mind, a fool's gambit, he knew, but an anger that burned deep in his chest knew that there was no other way around it. He tracked them until he lost them, and gave up shortly after. 

Ethan remembered crying in the back room of the office before pulling himself together and forcing himself back onto the job. He did his best to follow in his father’s footsteps, catching those who evaded the law, and upholding it against those who bent it to their will.

It was boring and tedious but it was distracting, and that was what he had needed then, a distraction. 

“Sheriff?” A familiar voice called panicked at the door of the office, waking him from where he sat resting his eyes.

“Hmgh,” he stretched, tipping his hat back from where it had fallen over his face. A watery eyed man with pale skin turned red by the summer’s heat peared inside. The sounds and smells of a rainy July, horses hooves in mud, people shouting at one another about the humidity, the occasional mixture of manure in the undertones of earth that clung to everyone that even stepped in it barely, let themselves in with the man through the open door. “Davey, what can I do for you?”

“Sir there’s a fight outside sir, the saloon, Jonah’s fighting some newcomer into town-”

“Not again,” Ethan stood from the chair. He tossed on his jacket and ran a finger along the back of both of his pistols before bursting out through the front door.

Three doors down, in the middle of the street, a crowd had gathered. The familiar jeers of bloodthirsty spectators echoed off of the mainstreet buildings, but what was different, was the sound of the fight itself. 

Ethan was used to pulling Jonah off of poor saps who didn’t understand that the dopey man who looked like he only sat around drinking whiskey all day, (which he did, in fact, do), could also pound their noses into a mushed up pulp. And those sounds were meaty punches and the occasional sound of a head hitting the mud. This was different. It sounded like a proper fight.

He pushed himself to the front of the crowd and found that instead of Jonah on top of some poor fellow who made the wrong sort of joke, a man just barely taller than Ethan himself was fully holding his own against the brute. 

The man was a well balanced fighter, with a strong core and an even stronger upper body. Toned muscles shown through a faded red flannel shirt that was rolled up around his sleeves., and his chest was molded by a red leather vest patterned with the sorts of leaf designs Ethan had seen popular with the more high class folk. Though from the amount of ammunition this man seemed to be carrying, he wasn’t high class in any sort of manner. And despite the fervor of the fight, the man still wore a black beaver skin hat, two blue-black feathers standing at attention, cocked backwards against the ridge. 

The stranger threw a punch that Jonah couldn’t dodge, forcing him to stumble backwards, clutching his nose.  _ Serves him almost right for all the noses he’s broke,  _ Ethan thought. 

The sheriff pulled his guns from their hostlers and aimed them at the sky, firing one and then the other. Jonah scrambled back, but the newcomer barely moved from his position. 

“Alright, stop this goddamn nonsense this minute.” He moved the pistols to the two men in the mud, one on his ass, and one still on his feet. “The two of you are coming with me.” 

The crowd cleared off quick after that, scurrying back into the woodwork they’d crawled out of. Jonah followed behind Ethan meekly, rubbing blood from his nose every few seconds. The newcomer simply fell in line next to him, hand on the gold handled rifle that lay across his right hip. 

Ethan hung his hat on the hook in the corner as Jonah began digging through his pockets. “You know the routine, Parker.” 

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Jonah slapped down a few dollars on the counter. “We set?”

Ethan slid the money into an open drawer on his side of the desk. “You’re good. You can go.” He looked up to the newcomer, his face still obscured by the brim of his hat. Ethan was only able to make out the stubble of dark facial hair across his chin, and not much else.

“As for you...New in town, right?” 

The newcomer nodded slightly.

“Don’t talk much?”

“If I don’t have to.” 

“Well, round here we try to make things easy for our citizens. You pay the money for whatever bounty might be on your head, and we don’t lock you up. Fights like the one you had with Mr. Parker are only about five dollars.” He put on a slight smile. “We like to make them easy for him. He gets into them quite a lot.”

“I noticed.” 

“Yes, what exactly provoked him this time?” 

“I said his nose looked funny.” The man lifted his head slightly. “And I suppose now it’ll stay that way.”

Ethan hummed in response, pausing to flick through the money in the desk drawer. “Say, where did you learn to fight like that?”

He saw the stranger smile beneath their hat, cocking their head just slightly. “Where does anyone learn to fight?” 

“Prison, scrapes with angry people…” Ethan held his words out slightly. “Gangs.”

The man lowered his head again. “Exactly.”

Ethan pushed the cash back into the drawer, locking it with a key. “Sir, if you don’t mind me asking, why have you come into my town?” 

“I’ve been, as you put it.” He ran a finger across the brim of his hat. “Paying my debts to the law. Cleaning up the trouble I caused in my youth.” 

“Bounty hunter?” Ethan moved his hand to his hip, fingers brushing against the butt of his gun.

“Somewhat.” The man inclined his head towards Ethan’s nervous motion. “But I have no ill will towards you or any other lawman.” 

“Good.” He turned his head towards the empty jail cells before turning it again to the man. “Then what is your business in town?”

“Information. Clean, safe place to sleep.” He paused, thinking for a moment before speaking. “I’m putting up arms against some particular dishonorables of this great nation.” 

“What sort of dishonorables do you mean?”

“The last of my old gang,” the man raised his head and Ethan’s eyes widened at his face. He was an attractive man, with dark brown eyes and that bit of scruff he’d spotted earlier, but what caught his eye the most was the two clawed scar that tracked across his cheekbone down to the curve of his jaw. “The Ipliers.” 

Ethan’s blood had never run so cold so fast. He’d looked death in the eye, stared down a reaper more than once, nothing had ever shocked him to his core quite like this.

He must’ve tightened his hand on his gun because the man in red smiled. “You know them?”

“Fucking leader killed my father. Been tracking them for years, but they’re-”

“Impossibly good?” He shook his head, hat tipping down again over his eyes. “Yeah that’s their thing. In. Out. Nobody catches them.” 

“And you think you can?”

“I know them.” The man reached into his pocket, pulling out a pack of cigarettes. He put one in between his teeth, and Ethan fumbled for the lighter in his pocket. He leaned forward, letting the flame lick over the end until it grew red, the smoke pooling in the man’s face. “When I’m done with them they’ll no longer be a problem.”

“And just who are you exactly?”

“Fischbach. Mark Fischbach.” 

Ethan leaned back against his desk further. “No. Shit. Really?” The more he looked at the man the more his face seemed familiar. He remembered when he was young, the kid not much older than himself grinning on a poster asking for him with more bounty on his head than any man twice his age. “Now that I look at you, I recognize you better now.” Mark held out the packet of cigarettes and Ethan took one with unsure fingers. “You’ve had quite the bounty on your head.” He lit it, flicking his lighter twice before the flame took. “I’d assume paid, if you’re walking around out here alive.” 

“Almost thrice over now.” He waved the cigarette around a few times. “Once you go legitimate, people tend to well...you know, try to squeeze as much money out of you as possible.” 

“I’ve dealt with the sort.” 

“Say, you said that you’ve been tracking them, right?”

“I have,” Ethan replied softly. “Are you proposing…?”

“A partnership perhaps?” He lifted his hands up, which were sheathed in fingerless leather gloves.  _ The gloves of a pickpocket _ , his father used to say,  _ the gloves of a half-honest man _ . “For me, revenge. For you...well I know that there’s both prestige and a hefty bounty for the deaths of several of the members of that gang.”

“Revenge for me, too, is good enough.” 

“So…?”

Ethan rounded his desk, pulling open a drawer to reveal a bottle of brandy and a few cups. He set them on the desk, pouring them each a drink.

Mark took the glass graciously, and the two drank in their own stewing silences. He was the first to speak, his words leaving him as slow as the second pour of the bottle. “We’ll leave at first light, then.”

“Then the bastards are as good as dead.” 


	2. Wallace

The two of them had parted ways after the drink in Ethan’s office with little more than a nod of goodbye. He’d found himself shaken by the man, whose words croaked from him like the draw of a bow across a cello, deep and rhythmic, snapping like crackling fire when they needed to. 

The strange fascination with the man grew as the day drew to a close. He thought of the man as he passed the hotel, gathering himself as he watched the candlelit shadows trace across the walls through the windows. Sinfully, he wondered which shadow might belong to the stranger, if it was the pensive shadow that paced the ground floor, or the shadow on the second floor, first room on the right, that appeared to have a bit of late night company.

Ethan forced himself to bed, curling into the government issued mattress, his thoughts, and his dreams, filled with gunsmoke and the face of a man he barely knew, but felt like he had known for years. 

*

Mark waited for him outside the sheriff’s office the next morning. A navy blue duster jacket overtop of the red ensemble he’d been wearing the day previous. He leaned against the space between the door and the front window, where Ethan normally placed the bounty posters he received from the post office. His hat was drawn over his eyes, and a trail of smoke floated in the air around him. Hitched to the post near him was a gorgeous palomino, golden coat and all. 

“Mornin’,” he approached the steps up to the door.

“Sheriff.” 

“You’re the one who knows the details of this...endeavor.” Ethan felt himself tense slightly as Mark drew himself away from the wall. “Where exactly are we headed?”

“Northwest. Up through Elk country. ‘Bout a day’s ride.” 

“That far?” Ethan drew back a little, raising his eyebrows.

“Got a horse that can handle it?” Mark raised his own eyebrows in return. “Can  _ you _ handle that ride?”

He nods slowly at first, and then faster. “Course. My pa and I did that ride hundreds of times.” 

“Then you’re ready to ride out?” 

“Yeah just give me a second.” Ethan unlocked the door to the sheriff’s office, scribbling a note on a piece of paper before gathering some money and some weapons from his cache and heading back out. He pinned the note to the door, before calling for his horse, a little grey creature dappled with black and bits of brown, who cantered over from where he had been hitched up. 

“Nice horse,” Mark noted as Ethan began loading on his things.

“Same to you. Beautiful coat.” 

“Got her in Mexico from a Fencer a while back.” He pulled himself up on the stirrups and comfortably onto his horse’s back. “He called her Chica, and the name stuck.” 

Ethan rose up onto the back of his own horse, patting his neck. “Caught mine out near Joshua Creek. Named him Spencer.” 

“Fancy.” 

“Got it off of a can of coffee. Though it had a nice ring to it.”

The man almost smiles, “it does.” 

The ride up north was quiet, the two of them apparently engrossed in the scenery or themselves or whatever else happened to befall them at the moment. They made quiet conversation when it came to it, questions posed about the road answered quickly, followed by small clarifications, and ended with quiet nods or small grunts of approval. 

They ended up high on a mountaintop, looking down at a herd of elk below. Mark hadn’t been kidding when he said Elk country. The man raised a hand, pointing out a plume of smoke that rose over the tree tops. 

“That’s Wallace, out in the distance.” 

“I know,” Ethan pulled his horse back slightly. “Ridden up here before.”

“But bet you haven’t gone slightly south from there, hmm?” 

“South?” Ethan rummaged in his backpack for his binoculars. He moved along Mark’s arm, spotting another shaft of smoke just behind Wallace. 

“Mining camp, used often by outlaws as a safe ground to camp out in after they’ve just struck a large bounty or need somewhere to hide.”

“Let’s head in through Wallace then,” Ethan hands the binoculars to Mark. “I know the Sheriff there, we can ask if anyone like them came through town recent.”

“I don’t know.” He watched him put the binoculars up to his eyes, hearing the soft release of a sigh before Mark handed them back. “They might have someone in town who could recognize me.”

“We’ll take the back way in. Better to get confirmation than go in blind, right?” 

“Suppose so.” 

The Wallace Township sheriff’s office was on the outskirts of town, both making it easy to access for those just coming in off a bounty hunt, and harder for those trying to escape. The sheriff himself was a tough old man whose only outlaw hunting these days was the hunting for fish out at the nearby lake. 

As the two hitched their horses up, Mark held his hat low over his face, still scanning the horizon for any sign of trouble. Ethan rubbed a finger over the badge on his lapel, trying to shine it up the best he could before he pushed the door open to the office.

“Legour?” He called out into the empty room, “you salty old bastard, are you here?” 

A head of white hair appeared from a door to another room. “Nestor, is that you?” His eyebrows raised and he disappeared for another second before reappearing, this time donned with a navy blue hat. “I don’t believe it.” He practically scooped Ethan up into a hug, slapping the man on the back the whole time. “It’s been a damn long time since you’ve shown your mug down here.” 

“After my father...well it was harder to come out here without him.”

Sheriff Legour let him go, stepping back slowly. “Yeah, I’m real sorry about his passing. If it weren’t for the weather, I’d have come down for the funeral...but from what I heard, there wasn’t much salvageable to bury.” 

“Preacher joked that my father’s wrath called down that storm for retribution, but I...I don’t think it did much good besides burn a few trees and inconvenience some folks.”

Legour rounded his desk, digging through the drawers before pulling out a few photographs. “I was going to give these to you there. Kept around a few of these from when your pop and I were young.” He handed them to Ethan, who flipped through them with a soft smile on his face. “You can keep em if you’d like.”

“Thanks,” he grinned. 

Legour looked up to where Mark darkened the doorway. “And who is this feller here?”

“Mark.” Ethan answered quickly, barely looking up from the photos. “He’s helping me track down some folks.”

“Ah really?” 

“An old gang.” Mark let out a few grumbled words. “Ending it for good.”

"Ooh, a bit a step up from your normal work, eh, Nestor?" He slapped the man on the back before looking back to Mark. "Who is it? Barchen? O'Donnell ? Del Leon?"

"Iplier," Mark answered flatly.

"Shit, really?"  He turned to Ethan before Mark, his eyebrows furrowed. “Ethan. You know revenge is never the best course of action.” 

“I know,” he replied, his voice firm. “But this isn’t just for me. This is for everyone they’ve ever hurt, everyone they’ve ever killed.” 

Legour smiled just enough to make Ethan’s face falter. “You know, the older you get, the more like your old man you become. Both of you are horrible liars.”

“Only unhonest men know how to lie,” Mark spoke with a dark edge to his voice. “A good man must be a bad liar.” 

The sheriff shook his head. “When did you kids get so damn wise.” He rummaged around in his desk a bit more. “Well, you boys are in luck. A gang just knocked off the bank in town, lost a good deal of men and a good deal of money. They fled into the woods after, and we lost them to the trees.” He straightened slightly, looking up to the men. “They were like one of those newfangled machines, quick and noisy, but efficient.” 

“It’s them,” Mark was out of the office before the sheriff could say another word.

Ethan blinked at the door as it swung shut before he came to his senses. “Uh, thanks Legour, I’ll visit again soon!” 

“You better, and I hope you’ll bring back that money as well.” 

“It’ll try!” Ethan hurried out the door after Mark, and found him already mounting his horse. “Are we going now?” He lifted himself up onto Spencer’s back as Mark reoriented Chica.

“If they hit the bank last night, there’s a chance they’re already gone.”

“What do you mean?”

“If they just hit a bank, they’re not going to stick around much longer than it takes to get their bearings and pack up camp.” 

“And you want to get there before they can think to leave.”

He said nothing more as the two tore off into the woods. They rode hard for a while, until the mountains began to move around them, growing ever taller as they went. 

They’d seen the smoke earlier, meaning that there was a chance that the outlaws were still here, hiding in a camp they thought was safe from prying eyes. Until the prying eyes would come to turn on them. A final judgement day. 

Then he could see the last wisps of smoke trailing above the treeline, against the darkening grey of a rocky cliff face. It was getting dark out now, the trip here had taken them longer than expected, and Ethan watched for eyes and faces peering out of the trees, getting himself caught on the flashes of light glinting off of leaves. 

Mark slowed his horse as the two of them entered a clearing of trees, finding the smoldering remains of an empty camp. 


	3. The River

The two followed the trail into the night, but turned up nothing. Ethan blamed it on all of the river crossings they’d had to do, the treks through populated areas where wagon wheel tracks blurred together. 

Mark only seethed.

The two made camp beside a river, and Mark made quick work of an elk, skinning it and roasting it over the fire with ease. Ethan wondered how long his companion had spent out in the wilderness, away from civilization. 

Ethan had traveled with outlaws before, undercover and through bounties, but he’d never seen a man so wretchedly angry as the one he traveled with now. It wasn’t an outward anger, but an inner hatred that boiled beneath the surface of his skin like hellfire.

He could see it clearly here, when the flames from the campfire flickered across his face in their orange hues. The cold emptiness behind his eyes only kept alive by that angry fire. 

“Why did you leave them?” Ethan picked at the bit of meat on the end of his knife. They’d been sitting in silence for the past hour, and he was getting antsy.

For a beat, Mark said nothing, then he inhaled deeply through his nose and let out a sigh. “My...uh the boss, Mr. Iplier. He didn’t like attachments that weren’t a part of the gang. And I’ve had a few.” 

Ethan peeled off another piece of meat, mulling over his response. “Romantic...or?” 

“No, uh, no,” Mark looked down, away from the fire light. “Friends in towns, contacts...Somehow contact to civilians was more dangerous to him than being caught by lawmen.” He took a drink from the bottle held tight in his hands. “He had a habit of making them disappear. And I understood, for a while, and then he killed an innocent man, and I couldn’t take it, and I said something and he went cold.”

“And then you left?”

“I wanted to, but I couldn’t, because you don’t just  _ leave _ the Ipliers. You either die, or you get arrested, and even if you do get stuck in jail, they’ll either get you out again, or they’ll kill you themselves if you rat out on them.” He began unbuttoning his vest, shucking it onto the ground beside him. Mark then undid the buttons on the shirt underneath, and Ethan blamed the sudden heat on his face on the fire flaring up. “And if you even think about leaving, say a word against Mr. Iplier himself, then, well…”

The shirt was opened to reveal a toned midriff, and the red-white-brown matted skin of a long scar that ripped itself across his stomach and down his side. Ethan leaned closer to see it across the fire, the deep part in himself he often ignored wanting to reach out to touch it. He’d seen knife scars before, but nothing looked anything quite like this. This damage had been done with care and purpose, moving in a way to twist the skin like rope so that it would never heal right, to break the nerves and kill the soul. 

Ethan forced himself to lift his gaze from the man’s stomach. “And your face, you got that from him too?” In all of his years staring at that poster in his dad’s office, he’d never seen the two pronged scar before. 

Mark lifted his hand to his face, rubbing his thumb along the lower scar. “Mountain lion, actually. But it was his fault. He did dump me on the top of a mountain to die, after all.” His eyes held that far off glow for just a second before they flashed and returned to the dark pits of stone. 

Mark cleared his throat and put down half of the bottle. “When did your father die?” 

Ethan was thrown aback at the abruptness of the question. “What?”

“You’re asking me all of this hippy-dippy personal stuff, ain’t I allowed to do the same?” 

Ethan blinked slowly and then grumbled under his breath. “Yeah, yeah.” He paused, looking at the whiskey Mark held loosely now. “I just didn’t think you’d want to hear.” 

Mark shrugged and capped the bottle. He tossed it across the fire, and Ethan caught it as best he could. “For the edge,” he murmured. 

Ethan could taste the bitter bite of game meat mixed with the cigarette tobacco behind the startling warmth of the alcohol. “My father and I were always really close. My mom died when I was young, and he was really all I had. He raised me in that sheriff's office, and I was sure that he was going to die there too, pass away peacefully and let me take the moniker after growing old myself...it was just all so abrupt.” He lifted his head from the drink. “Do you remember a certain job that took place down near Catherina?” 

“Um,” Mark narrowed his eyes at where his legs were crossed against one another. “Homestead robberies, I think. That was one of my last runs with them.” 

“We were camped up river. I was supposed to stay there to make sure that we weren’t being sabotaged. He went down to try and one man army them, to reason with them. I got…” he cleared his throat and tried to continue, his fingers shaking. “I got nervous, didn’t think he could do it on his own. I spooked the guy up front when I went in after him. Mr. Iplier killed him right in front of me, and then turned tail and ran.” Ethan felt his heart rate quicken as his fingers tightened around the bottle. “So I shot him through the shoulder.” 

“ _ You  _ did that?” Mark’s eyes were wide, the glimmer of a genuine expression dancing across his face. The two regarded one another for a moment, each scanning the other’s features, Ethan finding the warmth and fear that flickered with the anger, and Mark finding the hate and hunger and true terror that still shocked through the man to this day, until their gaze broke. 

And each understood a little more about the other. 

Mark scratched the back of his neck. “Here, uh, bring the bottle here, we can share it easier that way.”

Ethan pulled himself from the dirt and crossed around the fire to sit to Mark’s right, back falling against the cliffside. He handed Mark the whiskey before leaning his head back and closing his eyes. When he opened them, he watched as the innumerable stars twinkled in the night. Above him, cast against the stone of the cliff, their shadows hung like flickering phantoms. The shadows leaned against one another in the curve of the light, and Ethan felt his face grow warm again at the thought of them doing the same.

_ Since when had he gotten so soft? _

Ethan let his head fall back into place. “He really dumped you on a mountain, alone to die?” 

“Mmhm.” 

“How did you even survive?”

“The cold kept me from bleeding out entirely, and I was able to find my way out eventually. When I collapsed in some random town, I was all the way over in Mexico.” He rubbed his eyes, looking about as tired as Ethan felt. “When I got my bearings I ran. I got as far away as I could from anything to do with the gang, so far that they would think I died on that mountain.” He looked ghostly under the glow of moonlight against fire.

“And now you’ll return to end them like they wanted to end you.”

“Their own personal angel of death.” 

He  _ was _ angelic, in his own way, Ethan thought. He nearly opened his mouth to say it, but instead took the bottle and drank down the sour thoughts that kept springing to his increasingly drunken brain. 

“Get some sleep,” Mark slapped his shoulder. He wrestled the bottle out of Ethan’s hands with relative ease. Ethan let him take it, if only for the man to hold his wrist there for a moment. 

“What ‘bout bandits?” He murmured sleepily.

“You’ll be safe.” Mark’s voice hit with the downward strike of a match against a boot. “I’ll watch over you.” 

Ethan pushed his hat down over his eyes, settling in against the wall, realizing that he would let the fire from that match burn him to the ground if he had the chance.


	4. Morsey

When Ethan woke the next morning, he found he’d been covered with a blanket. 

The fire had flickered down to a solid pile of hot coals, and two rabbits were slow cooking on some sticks propped up by a few rocks. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and straightened slowly, searching the camp for Mark, who was nowhere to be seen. Chica was still hitched up next to Spencer, so he couldn’t have gone far, but Ethan still worried.

He pushed his way out from the small grove of trees that sheltered them somewhat from sight, and spotted a figure standing out in the river water. They weren’t wearing a shirt, and Ethan could see the hint of a scar running across the left side of their back.

“Mark?” He called out through cupped hands. “What are you doing?” 

The man turned around, stepping forward, and Ethan realized that he was completely naked, only now spotting the clothes strewn on the ground by a few large boulders. He turned around quick, covering his eyes for good measure. Ethan hadn’t seen anything exactly, but the water was low enough to ride the man’s hips, and the insinuation of anything at all had brought that heat he’d blamed on the whiskey last night back to his face.

He heard laughter and the sound of sloshing water as Mark returned to shore. 

“Didn’t know you were such a prude, sheriff.” 

Ethan went even more red at the title. “It’s just, I want to give you your privacy.” His voice was shaking too much to be anywhere near believable, but Mark still seemed to buy it. 

“I don’t mind.”

“Why the hell are you swimming damn buck-naked in the first place?” Ethan turned around tentatively, his fingers still over his eyes. “We’re mostly secluded out here, but people still travel through this area, aren’t you worried about being seen?”

He removed a finger slowly, finding Mark hopping on one foot trying to pull on a pair of pants. Mark pulled them fully up and grinned. “I don’t mind.”

“You’re one strange bastard.” He took a good look at the man, lingering slightly on the places where the water pooled, before forcing himself to turn around and head back, stock straight like a soldier, to their little camp.

Ethan sat down on a rock near the fire, poking at it with a stick while trying to push down every other thought he was having. Mark appeared from the woods soon after, grabbing his hat from his horse and squishing it down on top of his head. He picked a bit of rabbit meat off of the bone and gulped it down. 

“So uh,” Ethan rubbed his nose. “Where are we heading to now?”

“Morsey, it’s their drop town to hide money and goods. They’ll be there for at least three days to recuperate and lay low for a while.”

“How’d you reckon that? I thought you said we’d lost them yesterday.”

Mark pointed to the west, up the riverbank. “Do you see those marks on the trees?”

Ethan turned his head towards the grove of oak trees across from them. On the bark of the trees were several slash marks. They could’ve been mistaken for the claw marks of a cougar, but it was too far out of the mountains to be a creature like that, and too imprecise. The marks fell too far apart to be from an animal's claws, but were just in the right arc and distance to belong to the strike of a knife. 

“Markings?”

“Yep, that’s how I knew we were in the right place. They always leave something, in case a member gets caught up by law or by circumstance, they can find their way back to everyone else. Sometimes it’s horse shit on a specific rock, or the remains of a deer with the bones spread in a narrowing point, or knife marks on a tree.” 

“And if they think you’re dead…”

“Then they’d never change it.” 

The two of them broke down the camp, smothering the fire in a layer of dust and smaller rocks that were strewn around the area. 

It was a few hours ride to Morsey, and much of it was spent exchanging stories and details of their lives. Ethan told Mark about coming up here to hunt with his dad every spring when the elk migrated back over through the Yellowtree Plains, and how they’d have meat for months on end, and how he’d be sick of it by August, and by December, miss it all over again. Mark told Ethan how he’d been taken in by the gang when he was just a teenager, running from his past and the law, and how Mr. Iplier had scooped him up and into an even deeper life of crime. 

“I remember staring at your poster on the wall,” Ethan said as the two rode side by side. “I thought, how the hell could a kid my age be wanted for that much money?”

“We all have our talents,” Mark shrugged. “And mine for most of my life was robbing, scamming, and misdirection. The gang only helped me sharpen them further.”

“Do you resent them for that?”

The answer came after a pondering pause. “No, I don’t think I do. They taught me things I needed to know. I don’t resent them for that. I resent them for deciding my fate for me.” He turned towards Ethan again. “Do _you_ resent the path you’ve taken?”

“I’m...somewhere near content. Not quite happy, but content.” Ethan shook his head. “I guess I just thought that it was going to be a long time before this life was mine. But here we are.” 

The two moved on from the heavier conversations, relaying stories of great escapes and great captures. Stands they’d thought were their last, and the bloody battles each had seen in their time. 

Morsey came quicker than both had expected, appearing in the distance alongside railroad tracks and the occasional sign. Smaller farms spread out along the flatter parts of the mountain, and Ethan caught glimpses of animals through the treelines and along the river that ran down through the more mountainous terrain before ending up at the lake down by the Yellowtree area. 

It wasn’t a large town, but it wasn’t a small one either. 

More or less populated by passersby heading into West Fiell, it wasn’t a town very much lived in by anyone but tourists, bounty and game hunters, outlaws, and tradesmen, who occupied the town’s two hotels. Most homes around the town were on the outskirts, having learned that stray bullets in town tended not to discriminate which house they connected with. 

According to Mark, the Iplier Gang tended to hang around the woods outside of town, but their location always changed, so he couldn’t be quite sure where they were at all times. They rode up to the hotel on the north side of town, which Mark said was filled to the brim with the more friendly sort of people, and adjacent from a nearby saloon. He got them settled upstairs in a room before Ethan went to go visit the local law as quietly as he could. Ethan filled the local sheriff and deputy in on the situation, to which they gave him full access to any of the town’s resources. 

“From one sheriff to another,” the man grinned, shaking Ethan’s hand. “Anything we can do, just call us.”

Ethan found Mark standing outside the saloon across the street, smoking a cigarette. “How goes it?”

“Goes well,” Ethan moved to lean up against the wall. “They’re giving us whatever we need.”

Mark lifted his eyebrows, gaze still affixed to a point in the distance. “If I had known a badge would get me that, I would’ve cozied up to the law a long time ago.” 

“It does have its perks,” he crossed his arms against his chest. The two of them watched people begin to move towards their last destinations for the day, the sunlight waning on the horizon. “So what now?” 

Mark pulled himself away from the wall, turning towards the saloon’s entrance. “We wait.” He headed in, Ethan close on his heels. 


	5. Harvey and Mavis

Ethan pressed himself up against the bar, as he entered the saloon, looking to Mark for answers. “What are we waiting for exactly?”

Mark didn’t answer until he was close enough to Ethan to keep his voice low. “If I know the gang well enough, they’d send scouts into town. And those scouts are going to be able bodied and in want of some hard liquor. They’ll be here soon.”

Ethan ordered a beer and Mark a bourbon, and the two drank in mostly silence. It was better than drawing attention to themselves on accident. Mostly they made small talk about hunting the best they could, getting more drunk than information by the end of it all.

Ethan was beginning to wonder if it was all for nothing when he felt Mark tap his elbow slightly. He turned his head to watch the man fiddle with a kerchief around his neck, pulling it up around his nose and tipping his hat farther down.

Two boisterous voices filled the saloon, and Ethan took the chance to look back at them. The first belonged to a man with close cropped brown hair and a thick beard. He was huge and barrel chested, with arms, when bent together, were thicker than telegraph poles. The second belonged to a tall woman, who hovered at least half a head over the man. She was as spry and lanky as a willow tree, with straw blonde hair running down her back in a braid. The two were a sight to behold, and Ethan had a hard time looking away from them.

“Who are they?” He murmured to Mark.

“Harvey and Mavis Beake. Twins. Nasty people, both of them fight like mirror images of each other. Harvey can move like lightning and Mavis is stronger than a damn bull, you never want to be on the wrong end of either of them.” 

Ethan tensed as he heard them slide into the bar next to him, talking about some poor fellow they’d run into on the ride over. He tried his best to keep drinking, but he still wanted to steal glances at the two of them, trying to memorize their features. 

“I mean, look at everyone in here.” Harvey began, Ethan could feel his gaze moving across the room. “All pansy fellas here for a respite like us.” 

“HA.” Mavis slammed her fist down onto the bar counter. Her voice was reedy and sharp, raspy from years of smoking. “Wouldn’t say they’re  _ quite _ like us, but…”

The two laughed at their joke, and ordered a few drinks for themselves. 

Ethan could feel himself getting less and less sober as the night went on, and he had to keep himself from breaking into their conversation.

And then Harvey did his job for him. “I mean, I could drink anyone under the table, except for maybe this feller here.” Ethan’s eyes flicked back from his drink to where he could see Harvey’s hand. “Twitchy little guy, ain'tcha? I’m talking to _you_ feller, I don’t bite...much.” 

Mavis roared laughing at the joke as Ethan looked up at Harvey’s face. 

He was attractive in the sort of way a fighting dog might be, pride through the pain endured. The man clearly had his nose bashed in enough for it not to sit straight on his face, his eyes sat high in their sockets, and his skin was littered with little nicks and cuts from knife-fights and other sorts of scarring. His cheeks were red from the alcohol, and a grand grin pulled itself from beneath his beard. 

“You much of a drinker?”

“Uh,” Ethan stumbled through his words. “Not really, I just uh, like it for fun, I think.” 

“You  _ think _ ?” Harvey slammed his hand into the table while bellowing out a laugh. Ethan saw Mark clench his fist slightly out of the corner of his eye. “Not much for conversation, are you?” 

“Not really,” Ethan’s voice quivered. 

Mavis’s smile quirked up, all cat-like. She swiveled against the bar, leaning away. “I’ll let you play with him a little, Harv, don’t hurt him much. If he isn’t for it, save him for me.” She sauntered off towards a group of guys in the back, leaving them alone.

“Excuse my sister, she’s a little forward.” Harvey grinned lightly. “But a sweet little thing like you…” He moved his hand to touch Ethan’s wrist. 

Ethan had never seen Mark move so quickly. The man was up and around him, fistful of Harvey’s shirt in his hand. Ethan saw Harvey go for his gun, and he wretched Mark backwards, and away from where he’d pressed Harvey against the bar. 

He put himself in between the two men, trying to grasp for Mark’s gaze, watching his eyes fuming with that fire he’d seen before. “Calm down,” he placed his hand on the man’s chest. “Calm down,” Ethan lowered his voice. “We. Do. Not. Want. Fuss.” His mind was moving too fucking quickly, but he managed to grapple it together somewhat. 

Ethan turned towards Harvey, who was dusting himself off. His eyes flicked to where Mavis watched them with a stone cold gaze from the far corner, her hand on her own revolver. 

“I am terribly sorry, my friend here. He’s very drunk, he didn’t mean it whatsoever.” Ethan turned back to Mark, biting his lip before socking Mark in the chest, hard. “Cletus, you fucking dumbass, come on, you’ve had enough.” 

Mark nodded slightly, and stumbled forward against Ethan, who grappled his arm around Mark’s shoulder, making sure his hat was tipped down enough that his face was obscured. Ethan felt around his bag, grabbing out a few dollars in cash and putting it down on the counter. He looked to Harvey for hopeful sympathy, finding that the man had relaxed.

“For your troubles.” 

Ethan carted Mark outside, feeling the stinging glances of the other saloon patrons on his back. He didn’t stop walking until they were safe in Mark’s hotel room. He shucked Mark down onto the bed, closing the door behind him before pacing back to where the man was massaging the bridge of his nose with two fingers.

“What the  _ fuck _ were you  _ thinking _ ?” Ethan threw his arms up in exasperation. “What in the actual hell did you think was going to happen? You were going to grab him and there weren't going to be repercussions? You would have blown your cover!” 

“I’m sorry,” Mark growled. “But you don’t know him like I do. If it had gone any further, he would’ve...you don’t...I don’t want…” He moved his hands from his face slowly. Ethan lifted his eyebrows, even in the low light, Mark’s face was flushed red.

“Are you actually drunk?” Ethan bit back a laugh. “We barely drank anything, are you that much of a lightweight?” 

Mark shot him a dark glance that Ethan only grinned at. “I haven’t,” his words were slightly slurred, only proving the accusation further. “I haven’t had a good drink like that in a while, and I am maybe...maybe a little drunk.” 

“Alright,” Ethan leaned back against the wall. “Then you get some sleep. I’ll watch out for them when they leave the saloon, follow them as far as I can.”

“Make sure to keep your distance.”

Ethan rolled his eyes, reaching out to push Mark onto his back. “I know what I’m doing. Get some sleep.” 

Mark moved quick despite the alcohol, and caught Ethan’s hand against his chest, pulling him forward. “Please, be careful.”  _ He smelled good, like earth and tobacco _ . 

“Yeah, right, course.” Ethan dragged himself away, grabbing his guns from the corner to hide the feeling that panicked in his chest. He leaned in the windowsill, cleaning his weapons and trying to keep his eyes on the saloon door across from him. 

A few hours passed before the twins left the building, drunkenly stumbling, and laughing loud enough to rattle the windows in their frames. Ethan slunk out of the room and down the stairs, watching them ride out before hopping into Spencer’s saddle and heading out after them. They rode for a good half an hour before they turned off the main road and into the woods. 

Ethan didn’t follow them all the way down, leaving Spencer hitched to a tree, and taking the wooded path on foot. It led him down to a small alcove of a mountain, which bent around a small clearing, hiding it from sight. It was a perfect bottleneck, as long as they didn’t try to escape out, anyone coming in could be killed easily.

He and Mark would need to make a new plan. 


	6. Old Wounds

Ethan rode back into town as the sun was still rising, and pulled a few rations out of his saddlebags. He carried them upstairs, and waited in the windowsill for Mark to wake up from where he was deep in sleep. 

When he did wake, the two ate a breakfast of dried meat and crackers, standing together in the sunlight that came in through the little window. 

“They’ve taken the Uncove Camp, I didn’t expect them to do that.” Mark shook his head. “They’re really hiding this time, something must be spooking them.” 

The two agreed to work countershifts watching over Morsey. During the day Mark would watch the saloon, and Ethan would watch the entrances to the town, and during the evening they would switch positions. 

“I’m assuming they’ll stay here for at least three more days. In that time, we need to get as much information out of them as possible.” Mark had that faraway look in his eyes again. He was more sober today than he’d been last night, but something about seeing Harvey seemed to have shaken something loose in him. 

“You aren’t going to do anything stupid, right?” 

“Nothing too stupid,” he replied quietly. “But if that bastard draws anything on me, gun, knife, fists, I’m going to kill him.” 

“Remember our covers Mark, keep yourself hidden. Our only cards in this game are our identities. If they don’t know we’re chasing them-”

“They’re not going to try as hard when hiding, I know, but-”

“Your name?”

Mark stopped, rolled his eyes, and answered. “Cletus Von Braun.”

“You are?”

“A hunter from New Ghent who’s out with his hunting buddy for the season. The reason we’ve never been seen up here before is because we normally hunt around Wallace, but it’s been picked over this year.” 

“And I am your hunting buddy, Miles Omaha, and if we’re seen at the sheriff’s office at all-” 

“I know, I know. It’s because we ran into some poachers on the way up here and we told the locals, so they’ve asked us to come in and try to identify them.” Mark shook his head. “I don’t see why we can’t just shoot them up here and track them as they run.”

“Because,” Ethan pulled Mark’s bandana up over his mouth. Mark's face was warm beneath the fabric, like he'd been standing in the sun for a little too long. “Then they’ll know they’re being tracked down and killed. And then?”

He rolled his eyes again, and rubbed his nose, adjusting the bandana, before sighing. “They’ll run.”

The first few days went by without much conversation or fuss in town, both of them returning to one another after dark with any information they could muster. The most they’d gotten so far was that a hunting party had gone out and brought back food. But from the way Mark had seen them react, it might’ve been much more than just a deer or a few rabbits. Possibly, information about their next place to hunker down. Ethan had taken to watching those who came into the saloon from a far, they were loud enough that he could listen to them, but quiet enough to keep most of their information to themselves. 

Mark was getting antsy. It was clear in the way he moved, caged and angry. He wanted to get this done with much quicker than he was letting on, or, he was shaken by seeing them again. If anything, they needed to get the gang moving soon, or Mark might be pushed to do something drastic.

Then, on the third day of watching in wait, Ethan snagged something. But it was something much different than what he’d bargained for. 

He’d been sitting at the bar again when Harvey and Mavis entered, their same boisterous selves. Ethan clenched in a little closer to himself, keeping his eyes on his drink. He heard Mavis tell Harvey something under her breath before watching her stumble off to the pool table, slurring her words and yelling something fierce. He’d expected murderers and thieves, but a con as simple as pool hustling, he hadn’t anticipated. 

Harvey sat down at the bar next to him, ordering a drink. He watched the man survey the saloon covertly, before seeming to realize Ethan was there. Ethan then noticed that the man took a second to check for a companion before turning to him entirely.

“You, you were here a few nights ago, right?” 

He turned to Harvey and pretended to look surprised. Ethan stumbled over his words as purposefully as he could, which wasn’t that hard considering all of the horrible things Mark had told him about Harvey. “Yes, um, I was, and I am very sorry for the trouble my friend caused.” 

Harvey laughed hard and slapped Ethan on the back. “No fault of yours my friend, he was just a drunken idiot, I know the type.” He looked up to the bartender and held up two fingers, “two beers sir, if you would.”

“Oh you don’t need to-”

“It’s my pleasure,” Harvey’s smile settled from a smirk into something more hungry. Something more reminiscent of the cat-like grin Mavis had flashed him a few nights ago. “Always good to make friends on roads like these.” 

“You’re right about that,” Ethan played along, eyes flicking between the man and his drink. 

The two made a little small talk as the night rolled on, slowly getting more and more drunk as time passed. He learned little bits about Harvey, parsing out what were cleverly hidden lies and what was the truth. 

“So you and your drunken friend, what are the two of you even doing up here in the first place?” 

“Uh,” suddenly Ethan was very glad for his backstory work. “We’re up here to hunt, for a few days and then head back down to New Ghent.”

“You came far for hunting.”

“Yeah well it’s normally a quick jaunt up to Wallace, but with all the change there, the elk have all moved farther north.” 

“Damn shame,” Harvey shook his head. He raised his fifth beer, and with a loud and slurred voice shouted, “to the elk!” Ethan did the same, albeit softer, as a few fellow drunkards shouted it as well. “You’re lucky,” he set down his drink. “To have a hunting buddy.” 

“How so?” 

Harvey continued like he hadn’t heard the question. “Someone there when you need them, someone warm.” He shook his head fiercely. “And I know I have my sister, but she’s a fighting buddy, and a...uh, a hunting buddy is different.” 

Ethan furrowed his eyebrows, trying to figure out what Harvey was saying. “I’d never known the difference.”

The man raised his hand, grasping for the air but catching nothing. His words were minced, and his eyes were far, far away. “It’s the feeling. Feelings.”

Ethan felt the words click into place all at once. “You don’t hunt much with a friend then?”

“Once,” Harvey sighed. “I did once. A long time ago. But…”

“But what?”

“Well,” he lifted his head, his eyes a bit watery, coming slowly back into focus. “Well he’s dead.” The man used his sleeve and wiped his face in a messy fashion. “I shouldn’t even glorify him in the first place, the skeevy bastard he was.” 

“You and him...You were close?” 

“We were  _ hunting buddies _ ,” Harvey repeated, as if that might make more sense to Ethan. “Of course we were close. Except...I don’t know if he always saw me that way. I tried to be there for him, I became everything for him. And him for me…” 

Ethan took a moment to pause. “How did he die?”

“Uh, he fucked up during a job we were on.” Harvey was using a bounty hunter cover story, so the term job and the guises of danger in his stories would make sense to an outsider. “Got himself all cut up on a mountain. He got so lost in the snow, well, anyone would freeze out there.” 

Ethan clenched a hand around his beer, his mind spinning.  _ Harvey and Mark… _

“Tragic,” he mumbled. 

“Life eventually went back to normal when he died. But still, I miss him. He always pulled away when the moment counted, but I still miss him, even after all the shit he put me through.” Harvey cleared his throat loudly. “What was I saying?” 

“Uh-”

There was a loud whoop from the back corner, and Mavis sashayed around a table, holding out a hand and receiving fistfuls of cash. Apparently the pool hustle had worked out well for her. She returned to Harvey, turning his head with her hand. 

“Aww poor boy’s gotten himself all drunkened up.” Her eyes, with their lamplight fervor, connected with Ethan’s. “Sorry for the troubles darling. I’ll get my brother going now. I hope he didn’t bother you too much with his...well all of him.”

“It’s alright,” Ethan nodded. “He had some interesting things to say.” 

Mavis put a hand on her hip before lifting Harvey over her shoulder in one fell swoop. “I’d rightly imagine.” 

Ethan returned to the hotel room and waited for Mark in the darkness. He arrived shortly after, shucking his things onto the ground, grumbling to himself. 

“We gotta move fast.” He sighed, “I think they’re heading out tomorrow, using the cover of night to get everyone to West Fiell.” Mark lifted his head from his things to look at Ethan, who was still silent. “What’s wrong?”

“You and Harvey.” Mark grimaced before he could even continue. “You were, uh, hunting buddies?”

“You spoke with him tonight?”

Ethan tipped his head down and then back up. “I got him very drunk.”

Mark bristled in the darkness, spitting out his words. “He didn’t do anything to you, did he?” 

“No, Mark, I’m fine, but you and him, you were…?” The pause was long enough for Mark to ruffle his hand through the salt and sweat of the day that coated his hair.

“Yes.” He stopped fiddling with his things and turned to sit against the desk he’d thrown his bags and guns haphazardly onto. “He and I…”

“If you don’t want to talk about it, I understand.” Ethan scratched the back of his arm. “And it’s fine by me, I don’t care who you...y’know.” 

_ Because I’m _ …

He didn’t let that thought continue much longer than it appeared.

Ethan cleared his throat lightly. “Did you abandon him or did he abandon you?”

“It was a bit of both.” Mark sighed softly. “It was tedious between us towards the end, both trying to keep what we had to ourselves and trying to survive under Iplier’s hand. Let’s leave it to more of a, I didn’t go back for him during a job once, and when Iplier left me for dead, he didn’t try to find me either.” 

“I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault. Besides,” he shook his head. “He’ll be dead soon enough.”


	7. Knife Blade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forewarning: This chapter will have a bit of graphic violence, and the usage of a knife in detail.

Ethan and Mark were heading back from one last visit to the saloon when two figures strode into town unannounced.

Mark had been quieter than Ethan had ever seen him before the night when they’d first seen Harvey. The man had a big mouth, full of stories and conquests alike, but when the memory of someone like this strutted its way into his head, Mark hadn’t seemed to be able to take it. Seeing Harvey had shaken him more than he was willing to say.

Harvey and Mavis were better dressed than normal when they walked side by side through the town’s main street. They had on strange duster jackets, Mavis with a new hat, and Harvey with a sharp haircut, his beard freshly trimmed. Mark had been right when he said the gang changed before they ditched a town.

“Hey!” Harvey called out to Ethan from afar. “Omaha, right?” He turned, and watched Mark push down his hat out of the corner of his eye. 

“Yeah,” Ethan tried his best to smile slightly. “You catch that bounty you were talking about?”

“We’ve just about wrapped it all up,” Mavis took over smoothly, her eyes glinting like knife points. “We’ll be heading out today.”

“Same with us,” Ethan smiled. 

“Catch much?” 

“I don’t think we caught exactly what we expected.” 

Harvey gestured with the jut of his chin towards Mark. “Your friend here doesn’t talk too much, does he?” 

Ethan drew in a breath. “If he doesn’t have to.” 

The twins kept moving closer and closer, and Ethan could see Mark’s trigger finger starting to get itchy. His head lifted just slightly, enough to get an alright look at the both of them.

“Y’know, I’m sorry we got off on the wrong foot the other night. If you weren’t so drunk, maybe I coulda had the chance to let you actually buy me the drink!” Harvey laughed like it was the funniest thing he’d ever said. 

“Unfortunate.” 

It was all Mark had to say for Harvey’s face to drop. Mavis didn’t seem to notice anything, but Harvey changed all at once, his hand moving to his gun.

But Mark was quicker.

Ethan heard three shots ring out, watching as Mavis’s forehead imploded inwards, knocking her back onto the ground, lifeless. He saw the other two strike Harvey, once in the left shoulder and the other in right, before Mark tackled Ethan to the ground, pushing them behind a set of crates as a volley of shots cracked out from Harvey’s pistol. 

“You killed my  _ fucking sister _ ,” Harvey screamed, his throat scratching through the words. “You  _ bastard _ .”

Ethan finally got his bearings, whipping his head towards Mark, his heart pounding as the man simply cocked his gun again, taking in a breath before moving to stand. He grabbed Mark’s wrist but the man barely felt the pull, instead taking Ethan with him. 

“Mark, what are you-”

“He’s down,” Mark murmured. “I shot his leg and his good arm. He won’t be getting up.” 

Ethan felt cold fear trickle down his back as he realized that the shots hadn’t been a panicked spur of the moment firing. He’d  _ meant _ to only down Harvey, not kill him just yet. It almost made sense, Mark had nothing against Mavis, she was just collateral, she could have an easy death. But Harvey...Ethan had seen that look before, the shattered emotions scraped together through all of the pain. Heartbreak. Horrible, tragic, and true. 

“Harvey!” Mark barked out the name. He stalked through the street, walking past Mavis’s cooling corpse like it wasn’t even there. Ethan could barely breathe as the two of them followed a trail of blood from where Harvey had fallen. It dripped through the sand and around a corner alley. “Harvey. Make this easy on yourself.”

“You’re dead,” a weak voice hissed from behind a few crates in the back alleyway. 

Ethan followed Mark limply as the man weaved through the darkened back, finding a sputtering Harvey clutching his shoulder, propped up against a few bags of grain. His leg was twisted in a way it shouldn’t have moved, and the ripped part of his pants were growing darker with blood. As Mark stood before him, Harvey pushed himself farther and farther against the crates.

“You’re...you’re dead.” He repeated stupidly, babbling his words. “He said that you were  _ dead _ .” 

Mark pulled his knife from his belt, “they didn’t quite put me down right.”

“No.” Harvey pushed himself away with his good hand, the other hanging lamely at his side. “ _ No! _ ” He was screaming the word, his eyes flashing white with the expression Ethan knew well from years of hunting. That final panic of a deer that had been shot by an amatuer, scrambling for life before the hunter finally found her and slit her throat to end her misery. “Mark,  _ please _ .” 

“Do you remember when you let this happen to me?” Ethan’s blood ran cold at how soft Mark’s voice had become. The angry fire was gone, replaced by this cold fury that moved fast enough to burn. “Do you remember the conversation with Iplier?” 

With a single knife strike upwards he split Harvey’s shirt open. The man cried out in pain, but no tears were in his eyes. It was as if he knew that there was no use to cry, only to feel through the fear until it consumed him. Maybe he hoped that in his panic he’d find some strength to save himself. But Ethan knew that the man would die, even if Harvey himself didn’t know it.

“Do you remember how he told you that I’d been captured by the Holloways and turned?” Mark slashed down Harvey’s lame arm, and the man tensed, but the pain didn’t seem to register. “Do you remember when I came back with scars, when I tried to tell you what he’d done…” He bared his teeth, striking the knife down the man’s good arm. Harvey screamed from the pain.

“Mark-” Ethan tried to speak but the man ignored him. He had his head on a swivel, but there didn’t appear to be anybody outside, let alone anyone trying to investigate the alley. 

“ _ You didn’t believe me! _ ” Mark bared his teeth, roaring like an animal unhinged. “You called me a liar,  _ you bound me with that rope yourself _ .” He slashed the knife crossways against Harvey’s good thigh. 

“Please,” Harvey gritted his teeth. “You know I had to.”

Mark straightened painfully quickly, his voice once again calming itself. “You and I both know that’s a lie. I asked you to run away with me hundreds of times, you told me to wait...you told me that you-”

“We never would’ve been safe!” Harvey was crying now, and Ethan wanted to reach out and pull Mark away, to simply run far, far away from this place and let Harvey die here cold and alone. “He would’ve found us eventually.”

Mark lifted the knife, pulling it across Harvey’s stomach. “Instead you and him rode me up the mountain and dropped me in the snow.” He grasped Harvey’s shirt, shaking him as he pulled him up close to his face. “You heard me crying. You heard me scream from the cold. I saw you. I saw you flinch when I screamed your name in the wind.” 

Harvey said nothing, letting only tears speak for him. He seemed to have accepted it. He knew what he had done. 

“ _ Please _ .” The word was whispered so lightly Ethan wasn’t sure if it was Harvey or Mark who had spoken it. 

Then Ethan heard a sickening  _ thunk _ as Mark pulled the man close, his head over the side of Mark’s shoulder. He heard the soft whisper of Mark’s voice in Harvey’s ear, Harvey’s wide eyes staring deep into Ethan’s as he let out his final breath. The man slumped down, and Mark lay him back against the bags of flour, the hunting knife buried up to the hilt in his chest, right over his heart. 

Mark grabbed something from Harvey’s side, but moved too quickly pushing it into his bag for Ethan to see. He removed the knife and cleaned it on his shirt, surprising Ethan at how easily the blood bled in with the fabric.

“We should go,” Ethan murmured. His voice grew stronger as he heard the echoes of people in the distance. “We gotta get out of town.” 


	8. A Steel-Blue Pistol

Mark’s eyes slowly focused in from where they had been stuck on Harvey, a million miles away. “Right,” he whispered. Then he was shocked to attention all at once, and ran for the hotel.

Ethan hurried to the backway of the sheriff’s office, scaring the deputy on duty, who apparently hadn’t heard the shots. He was out of breath, his shoes probably bloody, and his hair sweat-swiped by the heat. 

“There are two bodies, one in the street, one in an alley. Someone will come asking for them. When they do, you tell them that there was a fight that broke out in the saloon, and they were casualties.” Ethan grasped the deputies shirt in his fist, the adrenaline from watching what Mark had done to Harvey still coursing through him. “You know nothing more. Nobody knows anything more. Okay?”

The terrified deputy nodded as Ethan released him and sprinted out the back door. Mark was waiting for him at the crossroads like they’d planned. The two rode up to a higher vantage point in the mountains overlooking the town, leaving their horses in the thicker brush of the trees before crawling on their stomachs to lay on the edge of the mountainside. 

The deputy had worked quickly, as by the time they reached the mountain, both bodies had been moved from the street. The two of them lay in the silence for a while. Ethan wasn’t even sure what he wanted to  _ say _ to Mark after what he’d just seen him do. 

He’d been so painfully silent that Ethan had no idea what was even going through his head right now. Ethan just kept scanning the horizon, waiting for Mark to break the silence first.

“There.” Mark pointed towards two figures on horseback riding into town. He saw them first enter the saloon, and then watched them enter the sheriff’s office. They returned with two bodies, slinging each on over the backs of their respective horses.

“What are they doing?” Ethan asked softly.

“They’ll bury the bodies back at camp and then head out. We have maybe an hour to get over to the next mountain ridge to be able to track them as they leave.”

He was so cold and unshaken by any of this. Ethan couldn’t detect a hint of emotion anywhere within him. Nothing but the endless frigidity of an unforgiving mountain top. He wondered if Mark had gotten more than just a cougar scar up there. If the mountain too, had run him through with its own sort of claws, eating away at the fire that kept him alive, forcing it to grow brighter and brighter until it burned cold enough to sustain him up there. 

Ethan wished he’d asked Harvey more about what Mark was like before. He had the warmth of a kind man, but the eyes of one who had killed, and knew he would have to do so again. He wondered what sorts of beauty Mr. Iplier had extinguished within Mark, what sorts of love and happiness he’d forbade that made him what he was now. 

The two watched the camp, and found that Mark had been right, the occupants did leave about an hour later, this time without Harvey and Mavis’s bodies. They followed the caravan of horses and wagons as it rode along, careful not to ride too close. 

“Do you think he’ll suspect anything?” Ethan finally pondered out loud. “Iplier?”

“Don’t know for sure.” Mark’s tone had returned to its normal tamber. The same draw of a bow across a cello string, the same strike of a match. “I think it’ll shake him a little at least. He’s lost the last of his children.”

“Harvey and Mavis, they were his kids?”

Mark shook his head slightly. “No, not by blood at least. But when we were young, Iplier picked the three of us up into the gang around the same time. We grew up together, rowdy, loud, and mouths to feed.” Ethan almost saw him smile, the two pronged scar curving upward slightly. “We were as much his kids as anyone could be. ‘Least he made us feel indebted to him in that way.”

Mark didn’t add much on after that, a few stories to pass the time, but it was clear that what had happened this morning had taken it out of him fully. Ethan still wondered what exactly Mark had whispered into Harvey’s ear as he’d died, but it was clear to him that this wasn’t the time to ask.

The caravan turned off the main road and onto a wooded one that Mark seemed to recognize with a jolt. 

“He doesn’t suspect anything,” he hissed under the guise of a small grin. “He’s taking the back route, but that’s more than normal. If he thought anything was wrong, he would’ve split the group up, taken them through separate roads.”

Ethan furrowed his eyebrows. “He really doesn’t think the deaths were purposeful at all?” He lowered his voice some. “Even with what you did to Harvey before he died?”

“Iplier always said that the twins would die because of their stupidity, and their callousness.” Mark tightened his grip on Chica’s reins to keep her from treading onwards. “Always said it. Always sticks by his own prophecies about his people.” He turned back briefly, only seemingly, to check that Ethan was following. “I think he just assumed that their luck had finally run out, and their brazen nature had gotten them killed.”

Ethan didn’t say much more for a while, falling away in his thoughts before finally speaking. “How did he say that you’d die?”

“Hmm?” Mark took a pair of binoculars away from his face. “What do you mean?”

“You said that he stuck to his prophecies about his people, what did he say about you?” 

“Oh, well.” He let the binoculars lower farther. “He said it would be hubris. That, or by betrayal.” Mark lifted them back to his face finally. “Guess he was right about me too, then.” 

Finally, the caravans turned down another wooded area towards a high cliff’s edge, and Mark held them back. They gang would be stopping for the night there, and Mark suggested that they should do the same. 

The two of them headed down the mountain a little ways to a small inlet lake that was fed by a high waterfall, and surrounded by the mountains. They made camp by the water’s edge nearest the falls, hitching up the horses and setting out their campsite. Ethan began a fire as Mark drew his hunting rifle from his saddle, and he watched as the man stalked along the riverside towards the upper embankment, where they’d seen some rabbits, a few birds, and the flash of a deer when they’d rode in. 

Ethan grabbed his bell roll from Spencer, settling them down before looking to Chica. Impulsively, he grabbed Mark’s sleeping things and set them out for him near his own. As he pulled the last bed roll down, something small clattered to the ground. Ethan reached down to pick it up, but jolted his hand back as he realized what it was. 

A steel-blue pistol had been pushed underneath the roll, the barrel was carved with care and detail, and as Ethan flipped it over, he realized that this was what Mark had taken from Harvey’s side earlier that day. On the butt of the gun, etched in with what was probably a pocket knife, were two sets of initials.  _ H.B. + M.F _ . The outline around them was fainter, and looked like there had either been an attempt to scratch off or fill it in, but it was clearly a heart. 

Ethan then wondered if the gun had been a gift. The coloring was odd, and clearly something customized, he didn’t even know how the metal had gotten to become that color, but it was definitely something expensive. The handle even looked to be made of rosewood, or maybe mesquite, but it was no doubt costly. 

He’d hidden it back in Mark’s belongings by the time the man returned, a deer slung over his shoulders, and two rabbits held with string around their legs hanging from his belt loops. Together they skinned the animals, cooking the deer with some brandy, crackers, and a few canned vegetables they’d bought in town. 

Ethan filled most of the conversation, telling a few interesting stories from his time as a sheriff he hadn’t already told, and trying to keep Mark from drifting off, he'd been distracted and off ever since they're ridden out, and it was worrying him. 

They ate just as Ethan finally got Mark talking, or more or less rambling, about catching the deer and the rabbits. He was a good hunter, Ethan had realized, but as Mark continued to talk, he might’ve just well have been a savant at it, and still, he was somehow an even better tracker. He’d been able to tell what sorts of animals had passed through the area just by looking at how the grass had broken, and what sorts of shapes had been left behind. 

“Where did you learn all of this shit about the woods?” Ethan finally scoffed after Mark told him about hunting a prize cougar on nothing but a few strays hairs and some brushed away leaves.

“A man called Gabe Trout-Mouth, he still runs with the gang, though he’s not as much involved as he used to be.” Mark shrugged slightly, “he became a nasty drunk as I got older. The twins and I didn’t hang around him much after he threw a flaming bottle of bourbon at us when he thought we were making too much noise.” He waved his hand, “and we were, but that’s not the point.” 

Mark stopped for a second, closing his eyes before slowly opening them again. “If Iplier was like my salty old man, then Gabe was like my uncle. He was from the Denyoa tribe up north, and was taken from his family when he was a boy forced to assimilate into a homestead family, and take the name Gabriel. Eventually he escaped them, and made his way back home, but by then much of what was left of his community had either been killed, or befallen the same fate he had. He lived for a while with those who did survive, and continued to learn about the forest and animals around him until he met Mr. Iplier while in a town buying supplies. Gabe agreed to help guide him through Yellowtree, and then the rest is history.” Mark shook his head before digging through his bag of supplies for something. “That man could track a mouse through a thunderstorm.” 

He uncorked a bottle and drank from it, handing it over to Ethan after finishing his swig. It had become a routine for them, for one to open the bottle and then hand it back and forth until it was finished. Ethan enjoyed the gesture, the strange moment of tense quiet between them. He would watch Mark’s throat as he drank, not at all because its movement fascinated him. Not at all because it was a second he could take to stare at the man, and take in all of the little bits of shadow and light that shifted on his face in the darkness. Not at all because he wished to be the bottle at the man’s lips.

He didn’t think like that. He wouldn’t let himself think like that. 

“Is there anyone you think you’ll feel remorse for?” Ethan took the bottle back without ever removing his eyes from Mark. “After you end them?”

He tipped his head back and forth in consideration before answering. “Gabe mostly,” Mark laughed. “Though I think I’ll enjoy his reaction to seeing me alive again. Honestly I don’t think he’ll flinch.” He thumbed the edge of the cork absentmindedly. “If Iplier kept Mary around, I think I’ll feel a little bad. Jack too. Maybe I’ll let Wes live, if Iplier didn’t kill him himself for letting the twins go at Morsey alone. Who else, I don’t really know...” 

“Harvey…?” Ethan thought of the pistol in Mark’s saddlebags.

Mark pressed his lips together and Ethan realized that he’d gone a step too far. “We should get some sleep,” the man growled. 

It had gotten well past dark, the light of the moon hanging overhead was enough to tell Ethan that unless he did get a good night’s sleep, he’d be unbearable tomorrow. He crawled into his bed roll and closed his eyes, but he didn’t fall asleep just yet. 

Ethan kept waiting for Mark to lie down too, but the man never did, instead he just continued to drink, and stirred the fire. Ethan kept his eyes open a crack, finding that Mark watched him intermittently. His expression was impossible to determine, but it was warmer than any expression he’d ever seen the man make.  _ Fondness, maybe? _ Perhaps he’d finally warmed up to Mark enough for the man to call him a friend.

He let his breathing grow deeper, and Mark seemed to believe that Ethan had fallen asleep, as he rose from the ground and trudged over to his saddlebags. Ethan didn’t see what Mark had retrieved, but he knew exactly what it was as Mark held it up to the firelight.

Mark lifted up the steel-blue pistol, rubbing a finger along where the etching Ethan had found earlier was. The man frowned, and Ethan realized that he was probably just noticing that the heart had been scratched away. Mark pressed his lips together, flicking open the chamber and letting the bullets slip out into his hand. He let them clink together in his pockets before pulling out a handkerchief and tying it around the pistol a few times.

Mark doused the parcel in the last of the liquor from the bottle before tossing it into the flames. It flared in the fire and Ethan watched it burn for a few minutes before he heard Mark make a noise. He lifted his eyes slightly to see that Mark had put a hand to his face, like one might do to cover a cough, but looking closer, he saw that Mark was crying. 

It was a silent sob, but tortured as he watched the man stumble slowly to his knees. Tears stained his face, glinting with the heat of the fire as the pistol burned before him. He made a sound, almost too quiet for Ethan to hear, but he kept repeating it. It was a near silent “sorry,” repeated over and over again, each time harder to make out than the last.

Every time Mark wiped away the tears, more seemed to replace them. It made Ethan’s chest hurt, watching him like this. He never spoke though, knowing if he did, Mark might not forgive him for witnessing something so intimate. 

Ethan finally shut his eyes for good after he’d seen enough. He took in a longer, deep breath, and turned over, hearing Mark go silent. 

He fell asleep soon after, not quite sure if Mark ever did, because when he awoke the next morning, the man was still sitting in the same spot, poking at dying coals with a stick. There were bags heavy under his eyes, and another empty bottle next to him. His expression was blank, but his eyes seemed calmer than before.

The fire had died down just a little.

He seemed content...not happy, but content. 


	9. Alpine Snow

The two woke up the next morning to find that Mr. Iplier apparently  _ had _ suspected something, because when they tracked down the caravans to follow them again, half of the gang was missing. 

Mark hadn’t said anything more than a few words to him since the night previous. Ethan wasn’t sure what to say either, it wasn’t exactly easy to turn to someone and tell them that you’d witnessed them mourning someone they’d loved. He noticed though, while they were packing up the camp, that the fire seemed to be void of the pistol, there was no residue or even leftover metal, just some embers and a lot of excess charcoal.

“Half of them are heading towards West Fiell.” Mark finally spoke as they stood on a ridge outside of the gang’s camp. “We’ll have better luck following this caravan anyways.” There was a slight pause in his words before he spoke again. “He almost made it easier to catch them.”

The two of them followed the caravan, in which Mark counted 7 people, as it headed towards the town of New Ghent. It wasn’t a bad ride, but it was a longer one, as they would need to ride through the mountains, possibly overnight to get there. 

Ethan knew it was a smart move, the caravans would have what they needed to keep the cold out, freak snow storms were common up here, and if anyone was following just on horseback, they’d have to turn back to keep themselves, or their horses, from freezing entirely. But the sky looked clear, and if anything did happen, the worst it would be was that the wind might be a bit annoying, but with the amount of fresh powder, digging down in the snow for a little extra protection and warmth wouldn’t be hard. 

He’d pulled out his coat from where it was tucked inside his bedroll, and slung it over Spencer’s back for easier access later. Ethan had found that it was nice for long cold nights while hunting out in the Yellowtree area, and it would come in handy now. 

“Iplier must be with the other caravan,” Mark spoke over the growing wind as they trotted their horses through the mountain path. “He always travels on a black horse, never on a wagon, and I didn’t see him or the horse with them when we watched them over the ridge.” 

“Who’s exactly travelling with them?” 

“The Baron family, Henrietta and Isaac, with their teenage kids Oliver and Fiona. They’re an old conning family from out East. Snake oil and the like, but Oliver and Etta are known for pulling armed heists when they’re needed.” 

As they reached the summit, and were able to see out at the group, he pointed out the bigger of the two wagons, where a weathered older woman with nut brown skin and a large brimmed hat sat snapping the reins. Next to her, a young woman with lighter brown skin and wild tuffs of black hair sat with her hands in a book, legs clad in brown boots crossed one over the other. At the back of the wagon, an older pale skinned man with salt white hair sat with his legs hanging over the back, a gun held against his chest. Ethan could see him speaking with a boy on horseback, who was about the age of the girl at the front, with the same deep brown skin of the woman at the reins, but the shaggier hair texture of the man. 

“And then there’s Raff,” he pointed out a short man at the very front. He had deep brown skin the color of alpine tree bark, his hair worn down in braids around his head. “Quiet man, but jumpy.”

Mark lifted his hand back to where a second wagon was driven by a 30-something woman with light skin and fair hair. She didn’t look the sort to ride with gang members, as her dress was clean from what Ethan could see, and she seemed to be wearing a small smile on her face as she spurred the horses on. “And that’s...Mary.”

“You mentioned her earlier.”

“She was like an older sister to me, a much older sister, she’s only a few years shy of Iplier. Mary’s a good woman...just stuck in the wrong place.” Mark let his hand fall as they watched them move on, slowly crawling like ants through the snow. “She was caught in a bad situation...owed Iplier a debt, or so I’ve heard. The two of them are close, in some way, because of it. And that's why she never left the gang.” 

“Is she-”

“No, I thought of that. If we did try to kidnap her and hold her for ransom, I’d doubt that Iplier would come for her, especially if he let her go with this group and not with him.” Mark paused, considering his words briefly. “I wonder how much has changed since I died.” He mumbled something under his breath that Ethan couldn’t catch before speaking again. “And you know the last one.” 

Mark pointed to the man at the end of the caravan. It was an older, weathered man, with rosewood brown skin and a face that pinched together like cracked mud with all of his wrinkles. He had long black hair and an unshaken expression that Ethan had sometimes been able to find on Mark’s face if he’d been looking close enough.

“Gabe Trout-Mouth,” he sighed. “I’d hoped that I’d be able to kill a few more of the others before I killed him, but I suppose I can’t always get what I want.” 

“Especially with revenge,” Ethan said softly. He didn’t mean for Mark to catch it, but the man chuckled at the joke, and Ethan felt a warmth he couldn’t control flicker in his chest. 

The caravan made camp just before dark, and Ethan had suggested that the two of them do the same, knowing that they’d need to make more preparations to keep warm than that of the gang. They had supplies, but Ethan was worried that it wouldn’t be enough to keep them entirely warm. 

Mark was hard to distract as the two watched the camp from the woods above. He wasn’t moving like anything near human anymore, his normal jerky movements and slow expressions had been replaced with something much more fluid. Every footfall was near silent, every motion, even ones that Ethan made, were helped along by some slow, dance-like movement that flowed through Mark like water. 

“I want to get one of them down out here,” Mark whispered to Ethan. 

“You’ll just scare them.” Ethan was close enough that he could feel the warmth that came with the fog of Mark’s breath. “We’ve gotta play it safe.” He could feel something in Mark shifting, and he reached out slowly. The second his hand clasped on Mark’s shoulder, the man seemed to relax slightly, his normal movements returning. 

Ethan maneuvered carefully, his hand snaking under Mark’s bicep to lead him back over the other side of the hill, and down across a small creek, to where they’d made camp near the mouth of a small cave. The wind was kept off of them there, shielded by rocks and a small covering of trees. 

Mark set up camp, digging out snow with his feet, shuffling it along until he had dug out a suitable place for them to sleep, while Ethan busied himself with a fire. The sun was beginning to set slowly, and with their altitude they had some extra daylight that they wouldn’t have gotten farther down the mountain, but it was beginning to grow dark when Mark rose from his spot on the drier part of the ground, announcing softly that he was going to go hunt something for them to eat. 

Ethan drank alone back at the camp, absentmindedly talking to the horses and taking inventory of their gear as he waited for Mark to return. He was alone long enough for him to set up a small tent, as the wind was beginning to pick up more fiercely now, and the sky was beginning to grow darker with heavy grey clouds. 

Mark returned with a few rabbits, pronouncing that the mountain was devoid of any bigger game. Ethan could’ve told him that the Alpine mountains were notorious for being nearly empty of anything bigger than a badger, unless you wanted to hunt mountain lions, then you were in luck. He’d seen more than a few up and around this area. 

The two didn’t stay up late drinking like they had yesterday, and Ethan figured that Mark really hadn’t slept at all the night before, as he was nearly asleep as soon as he crawled into his bedroll inside the tent. 

Ethan stayed up until the fire was blown out by the wind. He didn’t really know when the storm started up, just that it had been snowing a little, and then so much that he could barely see a few feet in front of him. Ethan crawled into the tent, barely making out Mark’s sleeping form, and nearly tripping over him.

It was getting bitterly cold now, especially without the fire, and Ethan tried to stay as warm as he could in his bedroll, but even then, his toes and nose were beginning to slowly freeze. As his eyes adjusted slowly, he could barely make out Mark’s face, but he could tell that the man was shivering from the cold. If they didn’t keep warm, they might as well freeze out here. 

“Fucking hell it’s cold,” Mark muttered. Apparently he hadn’t been sleeping either. “Was waiting for you to come in. Too cold. We gotta-”

Ethan’s face flushed, and he was glad that it was too dark for either of them to see one another. “Yeah, yeah, we should. For warmth.” His teeth were starting to chatter. Ethan tried to make light of the situation. “So are you a big spoon or a little spoon?” 

He felt Mark’s hands on him before he saw them, pulling him close. Ethan flipped over to keep their faces from being nose to nose, but he still pressed himself back against the man. The warmth was an almost immediate relief, and it was hard not to lean back entirely. 

He could barely let himself move, and only when he heard Mark’s breathing slow, did he let himself relax at all. Ethan started to drift off slowly, his eyes fluttering shut, when he felt Mark’s grip tighten on him, pulling him until they were completely flush against one another. He assumed that in sleep, Mark had wanted the extra warmth and reacted accordingly, but he couldn’t help but ease into the man. 

The curve of muscles against his body, the sheer warmth of him. If it weren’t for the panicking feeling in his chest, he could stay like this forever.

He fell asleep peacefully, letting his fingertips curl around the hands that held him fast to the curve of a chest. 


	10. Morning

The bed roll beside him was cold when Ethan awoke the next morning, finding the tent empty, the walls around him dark, but the entrance flap light with the brightness of the day. Ethan pushed it away, blinking out at the amount of snowfall before him. It appeared that at least seven or eight inches of snow had fallen the night before, cloaking everything in a fresh blanket of white. 

A fire crackled outside, and Ethan pulled on his coat and boots as he headed out to warm himself by it. Mark sat crouched beside it, his hands held near the flames as he tended to the pot of coffee he had sitting in the middle of it. 

“Morning,” Ethan scrubbed his eyes as he went to sit on the ground opposite the man. “When did you get up?”

“A bit before you, enough time to check back up on the gang camp.” Mark pulled the coffee pot from the fire with quick hands, and set it in the snow to let the outside cool a bit. He grabbed out two tin cans and poured a cup for each of them. “Doesn’t look like they’ll be able to move out of the mountains until the snow melts enough to drive a wagon in. That’ll take at least a day to happen, and it’s about a half days ride down the mountain, so we’ll be out here at least until tomorrow, and that’s hoping that it won’t snow again tonight.” 

Ethan just nodded and drank his coffee, still trying to wake up and remember much of last night. “Was cold,” he finally said. 

“It was a challenge to get you off of me this morning,” Mark chuckled. “You really seemed to miss me the second I left, pouted in your sleep and everything.”

“Sorry,” Ethan dipped his face down to keep the redness from showing. “I didn’t talk in my sleep, did I?”

“A little.” The man smiled wider than he had before and Ethan went even more red. 

“Oh god, what did I say?”

Mark just laughed and looked into his coffee cup with a smile. “What were you dreaming about last night?”

Ethan for the life of him couldn’t remember, but he buried his face in his hands anyway. “Was it bad?”

“I’ll let you remember over time.” 

“You’re really going to torture me like that?”

Mark grinned like a shark, all teeth. “I like your face when you’re embarrassed. Very red.” 

“Shut up.” He pressed his lips together, instead turning his attention to his coffee. 

The two of them headed out on a patrol of the area, watching the gang camp and looking out for any animals that might show themselves in the snow. They watched the group for a while, but the routine seemed to be to hunker down in camp, and even though it seemed like Gabe was trying to convince them to go out hunting, they never moved.

Mark resolved to just wait back at camp until the snow melted, they’d be able to keep their strength up there anyways, and passing the time in front of a campfire was easier than in a foot of snow. Ethan was sure that his legs were going to freeze off before they got off of the mountain. 

They talked more as they waited out the day, and Ethan was able to coax Mark into talking more about what he liked. A goofy expression spread across the man’s face as he looked skywards and pointed up. “I like looking at the sky at night. Just the infinite expanses of the above. Stars, moons, planets, all that shit. If I hadn’t become an outlaw, I think that I’d have spent my life locked away at some old college looking at the sky.” 

“Do you think that’s what you’ll do after all of this?" 

Mark sighed, and closed his eyes, his head falling back to earth. “I don’t really know anymore. Probably become a rancher or something.” His eyes opened slowly, and Ethan felt his face grow warm again with the intensity Mark was looking towards him with. “Unless I meet someone nice enough, and they convince me to settle down, stay. Then maybe…”

Ethan turned his head towards the horizon in the distance and nodded. “Does sound picturesce.” 

“What about you?”

“Mmm.” Ethan had never really thought about it much before. “Keep doing what I’m doing I guess. I like it well enough, don’t really wanna change it now.”

“There’s nothing you’ve liked more?” 

“Not much. I do like hunting, but I’m nowhere near as good as you.”

Mark tipped his head slightly. “Could always teach you, when all of this is over. It’s never too late to learn.” 

“I think I’d like that,” Ethan felt himself brighten slightly. 

There was a moment of soft silence between them, and Mark opened his mouth to say something. "Ethan I-" He closed it slowly and shook his head.

"What?"

"Nevermind, it's stupid." 

Ethan raised an eyebrow. "You've told me some stupid shit."

Mark's face warmed enough that Ethan had to look away. "Remind me to tell you when we're in West Fiell, then." He lifted his head to the sky, blinking a few times as he shaded his eyes with a hand.  “It’s getting late, I should go out and catch us something to eat before it gets too dark.” Mark smiled gently and stood, checking Chica’s saddlebags for his rifle before turning to Ethan again. “I’ll be back in an hour or so, I thought I saw some bigger game up by the top of the mountain. If we _are_ stuck here for a little while longer, it’ll be nice to have something bigger to eat.” 

Ethan just nodded and watched him go. He waited until he could see that Mark had disappeared over the ridge of the treeline before settling back against a rock to take a short rest. Ethan knew that if they slept the same way as they did last night, it’d be hard for him to fully fall asleep. 

He wasn’t even sure he was out for very long before he felt himself prodded awake. Ethan grinned as he stirred. “Back already?” Was his sleepy murmur as his eyes adjusted.

Fear trickled down his back as he realized that the figure standing in front of him was not Mark, and in fact were composed of several figures. The one he recognized the most was Gabe Trout-Mouth, but none of them said anything as Ethan felt something slam against the side of his head and the cold of the snow as he collapsed into it, and his eyes slowly blinked shut as he lost consciousness.


	11. Captured

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forewarning: There are semi-detailed descriptions of torture with a knife depicted within this chapter

Ethan’s vision was blurry when he finally came to, but he could hear the sound of a crackling fire around him. It was dark now, and his head swam with pain as he tried to register where he was. He groaned, attempting to sit up slowly and move to rub his eyes, but finding instead that his arms had been bound behind his back. Ethan froze, trying to get a good look at where he was but finding it hard to see, especially with that angry ringing in his head.

“Look who’s  _ awake _ .” The voice was not one he’d heard before, but it brought everything rushing back to him all at once.

Shit. The camp.

_ Mark _ .

He began to make out where he was slowly, seeing two figures as they blurred in his vision. One slowly began to take more shape, clearer and clearer until the man was standing nearly nose to nose with him. Ethan recoiled backwards, but only managed to conk his head against the tree he was apparently tied to. It only helped to make the ringing in his ears worse, and he winced in pain, pricklings of tears leaping to his eyes. 

The man in front of him, who he now recognized as Raff, pulled a knife from his belt. He held it up to Ethan’s throat, and Ethan felt his pulse quicken as the blade began to bite into his skin. “So you’ve been following us, eh sheriff? Raff tilted the blade enough to cause it to draw blood, and Ethan whimpered in pain. “Not so tough after you’re the one against the blade, hmm?” 

“Please,” Ethan could barely speak without his throat moving with it. 

The man just snickered as he pulled the blade away, and Ethan felt drops of blood beginning to run down his throat, and dribble against his shirt. 

“Mary,” the man called out to the other figure around the fire, “where do you cut so that it hurts like hell but doesn’t let him bleed out entirely?” Raff turned the blade so that Ethan could see the darkness in his eyes as it reflected towards him. “I always seem to forget when the moment’s right.”

“Really Raff?” Ethan could hear the far off sound of a woman’s voice, rattling around in his head like a tin can filled with copper coins. He squinted, trying to see better, but the glare from the fire and the darkness around it only made everything around him congeal into blobby shapes like animal fat in a pan. 

A face appeared slowly, still shadowy and blocky, but it looked annoyed. He watched as the woman took the knife from the man, and he hoped for a second that she might be telling him off, but she only came closer. “If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times. It’s here-”

Ethan let out a scream as the knife drew a splitting pain through his skin. He’d cut himself before, and it had hurt, but he had never felt pain like this before. “Oh he’s a shrieker.” 

He began to hyperventilate, his head spinning as he felt them jam something over his mouth to keep him quiet. “And then here.” Her voice was so calm, like she was explaining to a young child how to fix the broken wing of a baby bird. “And here.” 

The last one was the worst, and Ethan let himself scream again. His body shook as he could see both of the people in front of him smile at the pain. 

“And if you really want a kicker you could take his balls.” Ethan scrambled violently, and he could hear Mary laugh. “But I’ve seen people blackout from that kind of pain, and there’s no guarantee that he’ll survive that.” 

“I don’t even see why we need to keep him alive,” Raff’s voice faded slightly as Mary returned to her far-off appearance. “We already caught him after he started following us, can’t we just end him and move on? Regroup with the Barons like we said? They’ve probably already killed theirs.”

“Gabe says we need him alive, I’d assume to teach others a lesson. So for now…” He could see a quick movement of what might’ve been a dismissive hand. “Do what you want with him, s’long as you don’t kill him outright.” Mary’s voice was quieter now, but Ethan felt another wave of fear as she spoke again. “I’m sure you remember what I taught you about scarring?”

Raff turned back to him, and Ethan nearly started to scream against the gag again just from the look on his face. “I know. Need to teach any other lawman or bounty bastards not to even  _ think _ about messing with the Ipliers.”

Ethan wished that he wasn’t able to remember those next two days. He wished that he could’ve just blacked out from the pain. They kept him awake that whole time, forcing him to watch it all.

It wasn’t until Gabe appeared out of the woods a night later, and shouted at the two for what they did, that they left him at least a little alone. Ethan panicked every time they came near, every time Raff or Mary held a knife. He screamed his head off through the gag if they even tried to touch him.

Death was quick, he had always known that. Torture...toture was different. They were keeping him alive for a reason, and he didn’t quite know why, not even Mary and Raff seemed to know either. They kept questioning the old man, but he simply held up a hand, or told them that it would make sense in due time. 

Eventually, Ethan drifted off after being awake for who knows how long. 

The sun had barely risen and set twice before Gabe had forced them off of him, but his dreams were filled with enough fear to last him a lifetime. 

*

When he regained consciousness again, he found himself in a different camp, laying on the ground with his back propped up against a tree. It was night, and he wasn’t even sure how tired he’d had to have been to have slept through them moving him.

A pretty brown horse nibbled at the grass near his leg, and he turned his face to get a better look at it. It snorted at him dismissively, and moved past him. 

He could see in front of him now, and though his vision was still blurred, he could see farther than just a foot or two ahead. A fire crackled a few feet away, and Gabe sat beside it, cleaning off his rifle with a cloth. He relaxed as he could see Raff and Mary were nowhere to be found, and eased against the tree, hoping to catch some more sleep before they returned. Ethan knew that even if Gabe had told them to leave him alone, if he left again, the two would simply return to what they had done to him before.

Ethan felt a tremor in his chest, and wasn’t able to control it as he began to cough violently, watching as spats of blood began to appear on his clothes. Gabe lifted his head, and Ethan began to shake as the man rose, heading towards him across the gap. He watched as Gabe stopped and pulled a small flask from where it sat at the fires edge, before bringing it over to Ethan and holding it to his lips. “Drink,” he commanded. 

Ethan snapped his mouth shut, leaning as far back as he could. Gabe let out a breathy growl and pressed a finger into a spot on the side of Ethan’s neck. Ethan felt himself go loose, his jaw slacking as the man held the drink to his lips. “Dumbass. It’s only water.” It was cold, and it didn’t taste like anything that might kill him, so Ethan let himself drink. 

The man pulled the flask away as Ethan finished what he could, returning to where he’d been sitting beside the fire. Ethan was still trying to comprehend what was happening, after all Mary and Raff had done, why was he being so kind to him here? He blinked in confusion at the old man, but couldn’t quite form the words he was looking for. 

“Why are you keeping me alive?” Ethan finally sputtered, feeling a bit stupid at its simplicity. The man was quiet at first, so Ethan asked the question again, this time recieving a bitter reply.

“You are my bargaining chip.” 

“Bargaining chip?”

“For Fischbach.” The man had returned to his gun, oiling it slowly. 

Ethan felt his eyebrows raise slowly, but tried to keep his expression as calm as he could. “You know then…?”

“Of course I suspected,” Gabe replied coldly. “And your word confirms it. I trained that boy myself. If anyone could have survived the mountain, it was him. When that pistol Harvey carried was gone, but Mavis’s wasn’t, I knew mostly without a doubt.”

“Oh,” Ethan murmured. “Then you told Mr. Iplier?”

“What is your grievance with him?” Gabe didn’t answer the original question. 

Ethan stopped himself, and then decided that he didn’t really have any reason not to tell the man. “He killed my dad.”

Gabe said something that surprised him. “I am sorry for your loss.” Ethan hadn’t expected an old salt of the earth outlaw like him to have any remorse for the death of a lawman. The old man spoke again, his voice was ragged and torn, Ethan suspected from years of smoking, but it churned on like the crunch of gravel underfoot. “Iplier has killed too many good people.”

Ethan lifted his head slightly. “Is that why you’re here instead of with them?” He saw Gabe tighten his grip on the barrel of the gun slightly. “Because you hoped that if you could get out before Mark tracked you down, then you might disappear for good.”

“You are not as dense as some of the sheriffs I have met in my time.” Gabe reached forward to stir the fire with a stick that had sat at his side. “And yes. You are correct. When I confided in Iplier that I believed he might still be alive, and that he might be coming after us, he allowed us to split.” 

“You had hoped that Mark would go after Iplier first.”

“I had hoped, that he wouldn’t be stupid enough to follow us up into all of this snow. And I have realized now, seeing as how you followed us all the way up there and survived a night in that sort of cold, that he didn’t just kill the twins because they got in the way, but because he wishes revenge on all of us.” Gabe tightened his grip on the stick before setting it back down. “There was a part of me that hoped that he was dead, because I knew that if he had lived, that he would be brash like this.” 

“Did you know we were here the whole time?”

“Not at first. Then Fischbach was sloppy when you first came to watch us, I spotted him moving in the hills above our camp. Thought that he might have been a deer at first, but when I got a good look. I was only the more warry.”

There was a noise off in the distance, and Gabe held the rifle a little closer to his chest. There was a long silence, only warmed by the sound of the fire popping between Ethan’s ragged breathing. 

“I know that it won’t help you much, but I am sorry for what those fools did to you.” Gabe nodded his head towards Ethan. He felt the cuts and nicks on his body begin to prickle at the thoughts of the previous nights. “But I assume that they will suffer as much as you did, when he finally finds them.”

“You want him to find us?”

“He is the only one who can break me out of the gang, because if Iplier believes I am dead, then I am finally free.” 

“Then why take me? Why not just try to come into our camp to break a deal with him?”

“Because he would’ve killed me no matter, by taking you, then he has an incentive to let me go free.”

Ethan’s face screwed up. “Why would I be an incentive?”

“Because he trusts you.”

“Trusts….me?” 

Gabe didn’t answer the question directly, instead clearing his throat. “Fischbach is not a man who trusts. He was raised by a man who was, very much the only parental figure he’d ever known, and the man would barely give him the time of day. Eventually, he began to isolate himself from others, close down, until he was barely a shell of who he had once been.” 

There was a long pause, and then a deep sigh. “But when he did trust, when he was loved and given kindness, then he would do nearly anything to protect the thing he had allowed a piece of himself.” 

“Was he that way with Harvey?” The question was asked lightly, and it made Gabe laugh.

“Harvey and Fischbach were...they were like a pair of rabbits in their teenage years. Their relationship was not much more than sex.” The old man cocked his head slightly. “You know about their relationship?”

“Enough about it.” 

“He really does care for you if he let you see that part of himself.” Gabe shrugged as Ethan questioned the statement. “Even when it was apparent to all of us, the nature of their relationship, he still kept it from everyone.” The old man shook his head slowly. “Won’t matter soon, he’ll be here.” 

The two returned to their silence as they waited, for whatever was about to happen. Ethan realized with a sinking suspicion, as he noticed that both Mary and Raff had been gone for too long to just be a simple hunting to scouting trip, that Gabe might’ve baited them out for Mark on purpose. 

“Are you ever afraid of him?” Gabe asked the question as if he’d read Ethan’s mind. Ethan thought of the kind smiles and laughter that made his stomach hurt in more ways than one. He then thought about the way Mark had looked while stalking after Harvey. He’d managed to bring the man back, but what he was then...it sent a shiver down Ethan’s spine.

“Should I be afraid?”

“Only if you’re on the wrong side of his pistol.” 

“Is Iplier afraid of him?”

Then Gabe stood suddenly, turning his head to listen for something. He cocked his rifle and held it tight to his chest. Gabe moved closer to Ethan, pulling the gag back up into his mouth before pointing the gun at where he could see a figure appearing out of the darkness.

Mary appeared out of the wood first, but Ethan noticed that there was a gash across her face, and Raff was not with her. Then he saw a tattered and torn Mark as he moved silently behind her, pistol aimed at her back. Mark looked like he hadn’t slept in days, his hair was a mess, and his clothing was matted with blood. His shirtsleeve was nearly torn clean off, and Ethan could the bloody mess of a cut beneath it. 

“Where is he?” Mark snarled.

“He’s here,” there was a tremor to Gabe’s voice that hadn’t been there before. 

There was the sound of a gunshot, and Mary slumped to the ground. Mark raised his pistol towards Gave, but Gabe moved quicker, pointing the rifle to Ethan’s head. Mark hadn’t even seemed to react when the weapon was pointed at him, but as soon as it turned to Ethan, he faltered. “Gabe. You don’t want to do that.”

“Are the Barons dead? Raff too?” 

Mark didn’t even seem to register Gabe’s question as he got a better look at Ethan. “What...what did they do to you?” His eyes ripped from Ethan and up to Gabe. “Did you  _ torture him _ ?” 

“It was those two idiots,” Gabe spoke quickly. “I kept them from hurting him worse. And I will give him to you.”

“You made a mistake taking him in the first place,” Mark’s eyes glowed with a deep, fiery anger.

“I know,” Gabe said softly. “But you can understand why I took him.”

Mark relaxed a little, hand still on the trigger of his pistol. “Your demands?”

“You let me leave here alive, and you promise me that you will not come after me again.”

“Not happening. You know that debts must be paid, Gabe. You might not have killed me, but you never said anything while they dragged me away.”

“I went to the mountain the day after.” Gabe spoke coldly. “When I found the place they’d thrown you down, you were gone. The snow was too thick to follow you, or else I would’ve if I had the chance.”

Mark let out a soft puff of air through his nose. “I think, old man, that is the worst lie you have ever told.” 

“I wish that your biases wouldn’t put such a thick wool over your eyes.” Gabe gritted his teeth. “Then we do this the more difficult way. I think you and I both know my tracking skills. If I even catch word that you might be looking after me, I will hunt this sheriff down, cut out his tongue, and send it to you in the mail. Am I understood?” 

Mark tightened his grip on the pistol, but let it fall slowly. 

Gabe spoke again. “As good of a tracker as you think you are, remember that I was the one who taught you everything you know. Leave me be. He is safe.” 

Mark opened his mouth to speak, closed it, and then answered the man. “Go. Now.” 

Gabe kept the rifle trained on Ethan, but backed away, picking up a fallen pack and swinging it onto his back before calling for his horse swinging himself on.

“Bleaker’s Ridge.” Was the last thing Gabe said before he rode off into the darkness.

Mark watched him leave without saying a word, something in his body stiff for a second, before he broke entirely, dashing towards Ethan.

He pulled the gag out of Ethan’s mouth, his quick words slowly melting into rambling on sentences. “I’m sorry, oh god I’m so sorry. I never should’ve left you alone, I knew what Gabe could do, I didn’t think they would find us. I never thought that they would do this. Never did I think they would hurt you like this-” he sliced away at Ethan’s bonds, and Ethan collapsed into him. 

He didn’t even know when he started crying, but he remembered falling against Mark’s shoulder and shivering into him as the man ran a hand up and down his back. Ethan clung to the man’s chest, breathing in the smell of blood, dirt, the watery cold of snowmelt. He wasn’t even sure how long they sat there together, but it was long enough for the fear to subside, and the warmth of the other man’s chest to draw him in entirely.


	12. West Fiell

After they finally pulled away from one another in the camp, both of them wiping blood and tears off on their clothing, Mark managed to get Ethan to his feet. He still shook as Mark helped him up onto Chica’s saddle, hopping up and on after him. The two rode for the whole while in silence Ethan leaned back against Mark’s chest, his head swimming. 

At some point, Mark had told Ethan that he'd put Spencer in a stable somewhere at the base of the mountain, and that he'd sent word for the stablehands to have him ridden down to West Fiell, which was where they were headed now. He said other things too, but Ethan was so out of it, that nothing seemed to register in his head besides Spencer's name, and the occasional second or third word.

West Fiell appeared out of the darkness like an image of the night sky coming into focus, once a haphazard mess of random lights, slowly becoming a sprawling mass of buildings and smoke that dotted the shore line of Lake Mihowaka. It was beautiful, if you enjoyed all of the light, sound, and noise that came with a bustling port city. Ethan had only been there a few times in his life, but every time he had been, it felt like something else had changed within it. There was always something new to see, someone new to talk to, something new to eat. 

It was beginning to grow light out when they rode up to a back alleyway. Mark slipped off of his horse’s back, helping Ethan down as the two of them stumbled through an iron gate.

“Where-” Ethan mumbled lightly. Mark took him up a flight of stairs to a second story balcony, knocking on the door. For a second, no one answered, and then the door was pushed open a few inches.

“Hello Madame,” Mark purred. “The next door apartment wouldn’t happen to be open, would it?”

The door shut, not firmly, but enough that Ethan could hear a bolt being slid away. A little old woman looked out with sharp eyes at Mark, before looking to Ethan. 

The woman said something in what sounded to Ethan like French, and Mark replied in a broken response. She nodded and pulled a pair of keys out from behind the door, handing them to Mark. The woman took one more look at Ethan, narrowed her eyes at Mark, and grumbled something pointedly that made Mark laugh.

“Of course, Madame.” 

Her door shut again, the bolt locking for good this time. Mark, still supporting Ethan’s weight, shuffled them over to the next door over. He unlocked the door easily, pushing it inwards and helping Ethan through the next room, and onto the double bed that was pushed up against the far wall. 

Ethan rubbed his eyes as he lay back against the wall, shivering slightly. “Who was she?”

“An old friend,” Mark said quickly. “She’ll let us have this place under the table for as long as we need. It’ll help keep us under the radar for now.” He leaned closer into Ethan, his eyes fixating on the marks that appeared up on Ethan’s shoulders. “God,” Mark murmured. “I’m going to get some supplies for those, we’ll get you patched up the best we can. Try to get some sleep, okay?”

Ethan just nodded and turned into the bed, trying to close his eyes as he watched Mark leave the small apartment, hearing him lock it behind him. Sleep never came. No matter how tired he was, the fear got the better of him. Every time he closed his eyes, he could see them again, coming for him. The cuts on his body flamed with pain whenever he thought about it, and no matter what he tried, he couldn’t _stop_ himself from thinking about it. 

Eventually he got up to survey the apartment around him. It was small, with a hallway that led to the door out to the balcony. In the hallway, there was another small door, that when Ethan opened it, revealed a small room with a working basin for water, and an indoor toilet, which was a surprise, as he'd only ever seen one once in his life. 

The next room over had a small kitchen with another sink and a little stove that had most likely only ever been used to heat the home. Over from that was a small table with two chairs that were positioned to look out the windows and over the street below. Then rounding the corner, was the bed in the only other room with a door.

Mark returned carrying their things a few hours later, finding Ethan sitting in one of the chairs at the table, watching the street.

“I told you that you should sleep.”

“Couldn’t,” Ethan mumbled. “Easier to stay up than lie in bed thinking about... _it_.” 

“Shit,” Mark sighed softly. “I didn’t think about that. Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” he let out a long breath. “I’m sure I’ll pass out eventually.”

Mark gestured with his chin at Ethan, “take off your shirt.”

Ethan’s eyebrows tweaked upwards, and he let himself savor a sly smile. “Trying to get me vulnerable, hmm?” 

Mark just rolled his eyes and pulled out a washcloth and some bandages, but he avoided eye contact. “Wouldn’t dream of it in the slightest.” Ethan felt his smile catch a little, and Mark spoke again. “If I wanted to seduce you, I would do a much better job than this.” 

He bit his lip as he unbuttoned his shirt, realizing as he let it fall to the ground, that it was littered with cuts and holes he hadn't noticed in his sleeplessness. Ethan could hear Mark filling something with water, and he turned his body as the man approached. 

“Oh damn,” his face was crestfallen. “They really hurt you-” His voice wavered.

“It’s nothing I can’t handle,” Ethan tried to keep himself strong, but his voice cracked. He felt almost suddenly on the edge of crying again. 

Mark dragged the other chair to sit close, ringing out the washcloth before pressing it against Ethan’s skin. “I should’ve been there. I knew that Gabe was watchful, but I never expected him to know we were there.”

“Iplier knows you're alive.” Ethan remembered with a jolt. “I completely forgot, Gabe told me when we were alone.”

Mark swore under his breath. “Dammit.” 

“He said that he knew because you took something from Harvey. A pistol? I think he said it was?”

Mark bit his lip as he ran the cloth down Ethan’s side. He shivered slightly at the touch, keeping himself from leaning too far into it. “Oh. Yeah. It was a pistol I gave him a while back. I took it to...I don’t know…”

“I saw you burn it,” Ethan spoke quickly, “I should’ve told you.” 

“Oh...how much did you see?”

“Most of it.” 

“Ah.” 

They were quiet for a while as Mark rubbed some sort of bad smelling ointment on the scars before wrapping Ethan’s entire torso in a stiff gauzy material. Mark was standing behind him, cleaning the deeper scars on his arm and the back of his shoulder, when Ethan thought to speak again.

“Did you love him?” Ethan whispered, making Mark jump.

“Uh.” Mark’s hands stopped moving across his skin for a second before starting up again. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Harvey.” Ethan took in a deep breath. He repeated, “did you love him?”

“Ethan, why are we talking about this?” 

“Gabe told me about you a little-”

Mark made a scoffing sort of laugh. “As if  _ that _ old bastard paid enough attention to me when I was young.”

“Well then you tell me,” Ethan said plainly. “Why would you take it if you didn’t love him.”

“Because he betrayed me.” Mark’s voice was flat and cold. “So I took the thing that last connected him to me, and I burned it. I let go of him a long time ago. That was just the release.” 

“Mark.”

“Yes?”

What Gabe had said was swimming in the back of his mind. “Do you trust me?” 

There was a long pause. Mark made a sound between a laugh and a choke. “Are you about to betray me too?”

“No, no, I just…”

“Gabe is in your head. He’s trying to...well do what he always did. Orchestrate.” Mark wrapped the rest of his arm, and Ethan decided that it was best to change the subject.

“Mr. Iplier, what are we going to do about him?”

Mark’s voice was stronger now, and it was clear that he was more comfortable with this line of questioning. “Right. Well, it’ll be harder to find him now, because the Madame and a few other excitable business owners I met while out and about have told me that we have arrived just in time for the Midsummer Festival.” 

“No kidding?” Ethan had only ever heard about the festival from other people, he’d never been able to go himself. The West Fiell Midsummer’s Festival was well known for being an intense week long event filled with drinking and carnival fun during the day, and even more drinking, along with costumed debauchery, during the night. People poured in from all over the area to be a part of even a day of it, and he was surprised that it hadn’t been more busy coming into town.

“And that means that the city will be crowded, so, difficult to find them, but-”

“Easier to blend in with a crowd.”

“Especially with costumes.” 

Mark finally pulled away from Ethan’s arms, winding around him to check that everything was fastened together properly. Ethan caught Mark’s hand in his own and asked a question that had been boiling in the pit of his stomach. “What happened to you out there, when they took me?” 

“It, uh, it doesn’t matter what happened to me. What matters is that you’re safe.” 

Ethan wanted to protest but instead found himself rubbing a finger along the inside of Mark’s palm. “Did you get yourself all patched up already? Or do you need some help.”

“It’s not that bad.” Mark rotated the shoulder that Ethan had seen bleeding the day before. He winced slightly, and Ethan dropped his hand, pushing him back into the chair. 

“Better clean than infected.” He nodded towards Mark’s shirt. “Strip.”

“Ethan-”

“Or do you want me to strip you myself?” In an uncharacteristically bold move that made his heartbeat shudder in his chest, he reached forward and snapped open the top button of Mark’s shirt. 

“You, uh, um-” Mark stuttered, rubbing his face as he avoided eye contact. “You need to get some sleep. I think it’s making you…loopy.” He pulled off his shirt anyway, and Ethan found the cut on Mark’s shoulder. 

It looked bad, probably from the same knife that had cut him, and he wasn’t sure how Mark had even been able to handle this sort of pain. Then again, the scar that roped around his side couldn’t have been a walk in the park to receive. 

He patched up the wound without much more thought, and the two took a moment to just breathe. It felt like they had been going nonstop for the past three days, and Ethan was starting to feel himself wain in and out of consciousness.

“Hey.” He lifted his head to see Mark staring at him with concern. “You really do need to sleep. It’ll help you heal faster, or so I’ve found.” 

Ethan bobbed his head slowly in agreement, and dragged himself over to the bed. He tried to curl up and sleep, but he only managed to toss and turn endlessly, his mind unable to calm itself down. After a while of this, he heard Mark’s voice echo across the apartment.

“Can’t sleep?”

“No,” Ethan grumbled towards the wall. “I’m too, fucking in my head. I know they’re dead, I know I’m safe here, with you, but I can’t-”

He felt the bed dip beside him, and Ethan turned over to find Mark lying next to him. “Is this better?” Ethan opened his mouth to say something, but Mark yawned slightly. “The door is locked, and we’ll be safe. No matter what does happen, I’ll always be here. I’ll watch over you.” 

Ethan had a light smile on his face as he pressed a little closer, “I think. Yeah. This is…” 

A pair of hands pressed him against a chest, and Ethan nearly imploded from how fast his heart began to race. He placed a hand against Mark’s chest, just over his heart, and felt that same steady rhythm reflected there. It was completely normal, he decided, for that to happen. If it wasn’t _just_ happening to him, then it was normal. This was fine. 

“Now please-” Mark’s voice fell over itself in its warmth and tenderness, so much so that Ethan nearly passed out right there. “Just, sleep.” 


	13. The Midsummer Festival

Ethan woke the next morning just before dawn broke through the windows, so that there was enough light to see around the room in grayscale, but that the sounds outside were still quiet compared to what they had been last night. He opened his eyes to find that he was still held against Mark’s chest, who appeared to be deep in sleep, his features fair and kind in the slim light of morning. Even the sharpness of his scar appeared to be softened. 

That same solid thundering of his heart began up again, and gently, Ethan pressed his hand against Mark’s bare chest. The heart beat was calm and steady, and his eyes fluttered softly at the touch. He moved his hand along, barely brushing down across the skin to feel the rope of scar tissue that ran across the man’s stomach. 

Its texture was like nothing he’d ever felt before, foreign and known at the same time. He touched it with such deft, that it was as if he believed that it might vanish away at any second.  Ethan lay there against him, counting his breathing and memorizing the parts of Mark’s face he was never close enough to see well. 

There was that, curling feeling, in his stomach again, like all of the weight in his body was dropping at once. He wanted to sink deep into that feeling, to let go of the edge he kept himself on away from it, and relish in it. Fear kept him back. 

Ethan wasn’t even sure what he was afraid of. He’d felt these sorts of feelings before, but why did _these_ feelings for _this_ man scare him so much? He couldn’t even admit that he was having them in the first place, that was his problem. Well. It was more of a symptom of the true struggle that raged around the pleasurable curl in his stomach, cutting off the better feelings.

The sun rose through the window, first tracing its warmth across Ethan’s scalp like the hands of a careful lover, before it trickled over the bridge of his nose, and raised slowly up Mark’s face. He was so focused on how it climbed that he didn’t have much time to react when the light filtered against Mark’s eyes. The man grumbled, squeezing them tighter shut before letting them flutter open. 

His pupils dilated, like two black sand islands in separate seas of dark honey. “Mornin’,” his voice was thick with sleep. 

“Morning,” Ethan barely managed to croak back. 

“Watching me long?”

“Uh not long.” Ethan’s face flushed, and he pulled away and turned over to break himself from the sudden sweat he felt pucker on his brow. 

Mark was faster than he was, and grasped Ethan back against his chest. Ethan felt his brain set itself on fire as Mark buried his head into the crook of his neck, the low vibrations of, “five more minutes,” setting off _all_ of the alarm bells in Ethan’s head. His hands were on Ethan’s chest, on his stomach.

A fingertip traced the curve at the base of his sternum. 

Fuck. 

He could feel Mark swallowing against the back of his shoulder. 

_ Fuck _ . 

The man let out a warm breath that tickled the skin of his neck, and all of the blood was draining from his head to…

_ FUCK. _

“I gotta  _ shit _ ,” Ethan exclaimed rather jarringly, pulling himself free from Mark's grip and running for the bathroom at the end of the hall. He nearly slammed the door behind him, pressing his back up against it as he tried to ignore the current distraction in his pants. 

He wasn’t attracted to Mark. He wasn't. _Right?_

The guy was attractive, and Ethan had found guys like him pleasing to the eye before, but nothing,  _ nothing _ like this. He’d never been sexually inclined to-

That was a lie, but it’d been so long ago he’d thought it was a fluke.

Ethan undid the button on his pants and leaned over the toilet, bracing himself against the other wall with a hand, leaning his forehead against it for support. As he took himself in hand, he tried to think of anything that wasn’t the man the next room over, but that was difficult when his mind supplied nothing else but the breath on his neck, and the hands tracing his stomach, and their playful talk from yesterday. His mind went wild. He pushed his knuckles into his mouth and bit down to stop himself from making any noises as he finished, barely keeping in all of the strangled sounds.

Ethan flushed the toilet, washed his hands, and nearly fell back against the sink.  _ Oh god _ .  _ What had he just done? _

That couldn’t happen again, these thoughts couldn’t happen again. Mark was still sore from Harvey, that was clear. Even if he felt the same...he wouldn’t, Ethan knew that before he even thought it. 

He made a pact with himself then and there that this would be the first and last time this ever happened. He would push it down harder than he did before. Ethan would pretend that this was some fluke of his body. This would go no further.

And that was that. 

He pushed the door open and stepped out to find Mark standing shirtless in front of the window, drinking something from a cup. This was gonna be fucking harder than he thought. 

The two of them got dressed in clothes that weren’t ripped and torn, and headed down into the slowly waking streets of West Fiell. Without the haze of injury and sleep deprivation, Ethan could finally marvel at the beauty around him. Sure it smelled like horse shit, tar, and coal, but there was the occasional glimmer of baking bread from the open window of a bakery, or the salty tang of cooking sausages, or even the kinds of coffee that you couldn’t buy in stores that was hundreds of times better than they shit they bought from tins. 

Ethan took them down a street he recognized, and into a little restaurant cafe that he remembered had good eggs and decent coffee. It was early, and still mostly quiet, so he and Mark had their pick of tables as they slid into a two seater nestled into the back, away from prying ears. 

A lady took their orders and shuffled off into the kitchen, leaving them mostly to themselves. 

"Alright. We're alive. We've made it to West Fiell. They're supposed to be here..." Ethan folded his hands on the table, fiddling with his thumbs. “How exactly are we doing this?” 

“How much do you know about the Midsummer Festival?” Mark asked with a coy expression.

“Uh, not much. Just basically, costumes, drinking, and uh, yeah...basically just that.” Ethan replied, nodding a little. “And that there’s gods or something?” 

“Practically right. The Midsummer’s Festival is one that was taken from somewhere around Germany, or Denmark, or something, but it’s mostly muddled.” He waved his hand around in a little wave as if to illustrate it. “It’s been bastardized and changed so it’s practically completely different than the original, but it’s a chance for the folks around here to let loose for a few nights of bliss.” 

The woman set down two cups of coffee in front of them, and Mark thanked her before continuing. “The original story goes that the king of the Nordin gods, Baldin, was tired of being stuck up in his palace in the sky, and wanted to let loose, but his wife, Maiida, forbade him from leaving because of all of the ruckus it would cause the humans below. Baldin was a clever guy, and knew that his wife left to visit her mother every Midsummer, and using that as a cover, escaped from the palace and down onto Earth. Each of the nights he was on Earth, he instilled the help of one of his children in helping him hide from Maiida.”

“Oh!” Ethan snapped his fingers. “I remember now, each of the gods has like, precedence over a certain day of the festival, right?” 

“Exactly,” Mark grinned. “There are technically seven days to the festival, but only five of them are any worth for us. The Parade of Palonious, the Feast of Dyonaed, the Dance of Morjyenn, the Temptations of Hovikka, and the Revelry of Baldin.”

Ethan raised an eyebrow as he sipped his coffee. “How many of these have you been to?” 

“A few.” Mark turned slightly pink, but grinned brightly. “Anyway, during the day they have games and such for children, but none of it is very interesting. But at midnight every night, the mayor gets up, dressed in costume, and rings a giant bell in the center of the festival to signal the new god is taking over. The first night isn’t too bad, because the parade is only about costumes and trickery, but as they add more and more elements, it gets a little more rowdy.”

“I’ve heard that it’s really bad if you’re not careful.”

“It’s insane,” Mark shook his head. “People fucking  _ everywhere _ .” He paused briefly. “Well, people aren’t  _ fucking _ everywhere, at least, not until the Temptations.” 

“Wait,  _ what _ ?” Ethan nearly chokes on his coffee. “I know it’s a festival of debauchery, but people don’t really-”

“The fourth night is really...well it’s something to be seen.”

“You’re kidding-”

Ethan was interrupted by the lady arriving with their food, eggs, bacon, and what looked like some very greasy hash browns. Then again, everything in front of them was pretty much coated in hot grease. Ethan forked a piece of bacon into his and nodded. “Night four?”

They tucked into it as Mark spoke again with a mouth full of eggs. “Night four. The domain of the god Hovikka, who’s basically the god of sex and desire.” Mark paused so that Ethan looked up from his plate at the man. “It’s...well it’s something.”

“People fucking?”

“Well, let’s just say that because of the Midsummer’s Festival, flowers aren’t the only things born in May. And a  _ lot _ of brothels open their doors to the public.”

"So all of this has to do with the gang, how?"

Mark stirred the broken yolk of his egg in with the leftover bits on his plate. "Every time we came into West Fiell during festival times, we ran a job. I don't think this is going to be any different. They'll be cautious, but Iplier," he dropped his voice at the name, "is a greedy bastard. I think he'll run for it no matter." 

"And the festival's perfect because it's busy and people probably won't be home."

"Especially," Mark gestured with his fork, "the rich and well-endowed. They like to party with the mayor when he's not doing his, mayoral Baldin impression."

The two continued talking about the festival, Mark sharing a few of his favorite foods, and places they’d have to go to get drinks. Ethan kept trying to ignore the prickling in the back of his head, the little flickers of feelings that swirled around inside.

They finished eating, and headed back out into the daylight, Mark appearing to have a direction in mind. The two of them crossed a small bridge over a little river that passed through the city, and Ethan’s mouth dropped as he saw the span of the festival. There were huge expanses of tents, and smells he’d only ever remembered from dreams. Children ran underfoot in the most colorful costumes he’d ever seen, lofting flags up into the air. Towering high above it all, there was a gigantic circular wheel. He'd only ever seen ferris wheels in the papers, he'd never thought that they could actually be _real_.

“Where are we going?”

“We can’t attend a festival of costumes without them, right?” 

Ethan’s eyes widened, and he and Mark headed into a tent at the very entrance that had piles of clothing hung out front. They were the strangest garments Ethan had ever seen, made of material that looked expensive, but felt cheap and well worn under his fingertips. 

He rounded the tent a few times before finding where Mark was looking over a few different masks. Ethan was drawn to one that was a pale, bone white, and shaped like a beaked creature, carved with ornate small details. 

“Take it. And whatever else you want. All of this stuff is nearly dirt cheap. They’re all last year’s designs from the parade and the dance.” 

Ethan picked up the mask and hung it around his finger by the leather strap on the back. He perused the tent for a while longer before choosing a blue-grey suit with a floral designed vest similar to the leather one that Mark wore. He also found a black wool cloak and a pair of boots, and returned to Mark, who’d found similar clothing to his own. 

They returned to the apartment after walking along the city streets just as they were beginning to fill with costumed people, all chattering and heading towards the center of the city. Mark said that they should take some time inside first, where they could hopefully get out of the sun and heat for a little while, at least until it got dark. Apparently the festivities couldn’t truly start until midnight, so there was no worth going until just before then unless you really wanted a good seat. 

But the two of them weren’t here just to see what would come of the night.

Mark lay out a map of West Fiell on the table in front of them, marking on it with a pencil. “I don’t know quite where they’ll be, but with a festival, and people distracted, there’s no way they aren’t going to pull something while they’re here. We’ll be on the lookout the entire time.” 

He pointed to a small ridge of what looked to be a forested cliff just outside of the city. “This is Bleaker’s Ridge.”

A pang of memory hit Ethan sharply. “Gabe, he said something about that-”

“I’m assuming it’s where he was told they’d be if they had managed to get off the mountain and needed to rendezvous. If we can watch the city’s entrances from there, we might spot something, but with all of the costumes, we can be sure who’s who for certain.” 

“I guess we’ve got to just wait until the bullets start flying.” Ethan meant it as a joke, but Mark seemed to take it seriously. 

Mark gave Ethan some brief descriptions of who they might be up against. Wes was a tall bastard with shoulder length brown hair, Jack was short and flighty, and had a black scar on his arm, Sarah had a voice like a rockslide, and Jamie chainsmoked no matter the time of day. He went on for a few more, but Ethan didn’t grab the others quite as well. But the final one caught his attention.

“And Iplier. He walks with a limp, and he has a bum shoulder, the one that you shot.” 

Ethan nodded slightly. “I think I’d recognize him anywhere.” 

The two ate something to tide them over until later, apparently once they headed in, they wouldn’t stop eating. It was well past dark now, and people carried torches and lanterns in the street below, illuminating costumes as elaborate as long dressing gowns and masks that moved as they did, to simple pairs of pajamas and a plank of wood that was crudely painted and held up by hand. 

Ethan pulled on his own clothing, hiding his pistols inside the folds of his cloak so they rested comfortably. He held his mask between his hands as he exited, fiddling with his hair. In the low light, he saw Mark turn towards him, and every single bit of attraction he’d been shoving deep down ricocheted back and slapped him in the face.

The man wore black pants and a silk black shirt with a satin ruffle that billowed against his chest. A blood red velvet overcoat hung against his shoulders and molded his arms, and a deeper shadow-toned version of his leather vest cinched alluringly at his waist and broadened his chest. 

The things that immediately sprang to mind were thoughts that were probably better kept for the fourth night, because the man in front of him  _ was _ a damn temptation. 

And he was having an increasingly hard time ignoring it.


	14. The Parade of Palonious

Overhead, spurts of flame belched forwards from the mouths of performers, and crowds of people swarmed about, some in costume, some not, all of them drinking. Ethan put it to be around a quarter to midnight, if the clock tower across the way was to be trusted. 

The festival felt like when the circus came to town, but with more pizazz and costume. There was the sprawl of the festivities everywhere, no place untouched by their glamour.

He and Mark had fanned out throughout the crowd, watching for members of the gang where they might be mingling in the swaths of people . Everything smelled and looked incredible, with strange foods at every turn and tents that were adorned with care and love until they stood out with so much color it was near impossible to take them all in at once.

He and Mark met up by the tent where they’d bought their costumes just before midnight. Ethan bounced on the tips of his toes as he saw a shadow peel from the crowd, adorned with an ash-black skeletal mask that had huge horns that curled above his ears. 

“Anything?” He asked quickly. 

“It’s impossible to tell. But the costumes on the first day always have the most covering. As the days progress, the less and less people begin to wear. It’ll be easier to spot those hiding in the crowd when we can actually, well, see them.”

From the head of the swarm of people, Ethan heard a booming voice call over the top of a slowly quieting crowd. It was hard to hear him entirely, but from the gold in his clothing, and his more humanoid mask, he assumed that it was probably the mayor. He made a few more gestures, before reaching for a comically large hammer and slamming it against a giant metallic disk that hummed as it was struck. 

Then a man in bright yellow-orange robes and a pointed half-half mask leapt up onto the stage with a surprising amount of grace. He held out his hand, and waved it over the crowd, who began to cheer as bits of fabric began to be tossed out among them. 

“And now,” Mark grinned, waiting. “He makes his speech.” The man looked like he was going to burst in excitement from the look on his face. 

The actor, who Ethan realized was supposed to be the first god,  _ Pallo? _ Ethan couldn’t remember, raised his hands and began to speak. But his voice was washed out in Ethan’s mind, because the second he leaned in to listen, he saw Mark bristel. 

“What?”

“Shit, it can’t be.” 

“My brothers and sisters of West Fiell, do not be in denial. For I am here, and all is clear, that this predicament has truly beguiled!” The voice was smooth and clean, but it had a rasp to it that was unmistakable. “As you all know, you’re in for a show, but the goddess Maiida, she leers!” He wiggled his splayed fingers, and the crowd let out a shout. “Baldin must hide, or she’ll,  _ have _ his hide, so please, don’t let us go! You know the routine, you must stay keen, or else your luck, it will blow.” 

“Fuck. 

“Who is that guy?” Ethan gripped Mark’s arm back. “Did you know him?”

“Wes, he’s...fuck.” 

“ _What?_ ”

“If he's _ther_ _e_ , then they had to have ingrained themselves into the festival. Which also means that they’ve been planning this for a while, and it’s  _ big _ .”

Mark peered around Ethan, and tightened his mask against his face, pulling the hood of his cloak up over his head. The parade, led by the brightly dressed man, stumbled by them, lighting the lanterns they’d been carrying and marching up through to the main streets. 

“We gotta fall in, it’s gonna look stranger if we don’t.” The two of them kept to the outskirts of the parade, Ethan watching as Mark scanned over everywhere they went. 

“Mark, we should split up, it’ll be-”

“No,” the two of them walked side by side the best they could, but kept getting caught up in the sweeping wave of people as they jostled and jolted forward. “If they catch you this time…”

“They won’t.” Ethan said stubbornly. “I was caught off guard last time, but I’ll be able to keep alert this time.” 

“You don’t know them like I do…” Mark’s eyes watched the roofs of the buildings, his hands itching over his revolver and his hunting knife. “They might already know we’re here.” 

The parade pranced along the dark streets, filling it with light and noise as it went. Ethan wanted to step back and be a part of it for a second, but Mark kept them moving. 

Every so often the crowd would push in one way or another, nearly knocking Ethan off of his feet multiple times. Mark seemed to be used to it, but the man was on edge, catching Ethan and righting him without saying as much as a few words. 

“Why do they keep doing that?” Ethan spat after it happened a fifth time. 

“They’re hiding Baldin from the actress playing Maiida. There’s a thing that if Maiida catches Baldin during the parade, then it means a year of bad luck for the city.” He sighed. “And they don’t take that lightly here.” 

“And where exactly are we heading?”

“The mayor’s mansion, where he throws a party every night after the main festivities. But only for the rich and high society socialites, of course.” 

There was a wave of voices cascading upwards, and Mark snapped his head towards it. A woman in a scowling mask and a red wig piled up in on her head in curls head floated past, gesticulating wildly to the crowd. 

“Maiida,” Mark murmured. “Which means.” He suddenly grabbed Ethan’s arm and spun the man to hold him against his chest as a figure golden clothing and in the grinning mask of an old man slammed past where Ethan had just been standing. “Baldin.” 

“Oh god,” Ethan spoke against Mark’s chest for more reason than one.

“They say that if Baldin runs into you during the parade, it means you’ve got good luck for the rest of the year, but that’s mostly to stop the suits against the city from happening.” Mark released Ethan slowly, and the two continued forward, Ethan’s brain short circuiting all of the while.

“Do you think that-”

“No I don’t believe Iplier would actually have the gall to take the mayor’s post, nor is he exactly the showman type.” 

The buildings on either side gave wave to sky as the crowd headed into a large courtyard area in front of a stunning white building lined by an iron picket fence. They somehow managed to settle with the mob up towards the front of the semicircle that had begun to form. 

Wes stood in the very middle, and this close, Ethan could see why Mark had described him as ‘tall’ and ‘long haired’. The man was nearly a foot taller than himself, with a body somehow rivaling Mark’s in muscularity. His hair was pulled up into a long brown ponytail that swished as he moved, almost dancing. 

The crowd gave him a wide berth as he began to move them back with a few motions of his hands. “People, people, people, please give us some space to breathe. I’m sure from that journey, all need a bit of reprieve. Let me see, let me see, a bit of sweat has begun to bead, but the true question, has Maiida made Baldin bleed? Or will West Fiell retrieve another year of fortune, we shall see.” 

There was a rustling in the crowd as the masses spat out the grinning face of Baldin from their ranks. He did a little tumbling somersault, before appearing back on his feet again, splaying his hands. 

“Ha, ha!” Wes took Baldin’s hand and lifted it up. “And West Fiell shall not fear for another year.”

There was the sound of a woman’s voice, and Baldin took off back towards the mansion before Maiida appeared, squabbling with Palonious as the crowd cheered. The spectators swelled around them, and Maiida and Wes disappeared within their ranks. After a few more minutes of partying in the square, the costumed ranks slowly began to disperse until only a few stragglers were left stumbling home in the growing darkness.

Though it appeared festivities at the mansion were only just beginning. 

Mark and Ethan had taken refuge in the shadows of a nearby building, where they could watch the house with some modicum of cover from prying eyes.

Carriages carrying the rich and famous came in and out of the courtyard with all manner of characters. People in decadent costumes streamed out of carriage after carriage, shouting in their posh tones and kissing one another on the cheek, before being invited inside for the decadences of the evening.  It was about two fruitless hours in the shadows of watching random West Fiell socialites arrive before the entrance was nearly dead of people. 

Ethan let out a breath. “Are you sure you didn’t see him wrong?”

Mark had pulled his mask up to let it rest on the top of his head, and Ethan fiddled with his own nervously in his hands. “Maybe I overreacted.”

The belltower in the distance rang out three bells, and Mark closed his eyes slowly, rubbing them with the pad of his thumb. “Let’s wait another few minutes, and if it’s nothing, then we go back to the old standby."  They both knew there was no use, they’d been standing there in an empty street for hours, even the guards at the entrance of the house had gone inside. 

Then a rickety carriage driven by a beautiful black horse entered in from the far side of town, and Mark straightened against the wall, pulling away from it slightly.  From the entrance of the house, an unmasked Palonious jogged down to open the carriage door. Two figures appeared on one side, but the other door swung open, and a third stepped out. 

There was no sound as his feet touched the pavement, clad in black leather shoes, ashen grey pants with brass buttons on the side, rather than the front. He wore an ornate gold and black tunic shirt with feathered designs. Over the top there was a long velvet overcoat with epaulettes that came up on either side in the same design as his shirt. He tapped a black cane onto the ground, turning his head to survey the area.

The man’s face was cloaked by a mask that struck Ethan quite harshly. It was the same pale bone color as his own, but it was longer, reaching far out beyond his face into the hooked beak of a plague doctor’s mask. His eyes invisible beneath the black rimmed circles that covered them, but Ethan knew that he was looking right at them. 

And he knew exactly who it was beneath the mask.

Mark whipped around suddenly, seemingly having realized it too. His eyes searched Ethan’s frantically, before he spoke in a low tone. “Kiss me.”

“What?” Ethan squeaked.

Mark’s lips pressed firmly to his, hands grasping the sides of his face. Ethan lost all ability to think as he sank into the kiss. His arms fell to Mark’s waist to steady himself so he wouldn’t fall over. 

He could feel the man’s hand grip him tighter, a fingertip finding that sweet spot where his jawbone and neck collided and found a deep shuddering gasp in his ches. His lips parted slightly in response almost automatically. Then there was the soft swipe of tongue against his. 

_ God he wanted this to last forever _ .

But he felt Mark pull away, still gripping his face, their noses barely brushing. “Is he gone?” His breathing was jittery. 

Ethan opened his eyes, peering around Mark to see that the carriage was no longer there, and the front of the building was once again quiet. “Um. Yes. Yeah.” He backed away as far as he could suddenly, the cool of the wall meeting him immediately. He felt that tugging beg in his eyes, in his chest, wishing the man would just take what he had now and roll with it, because _they were here why not keep going._ But oh hell, he was terrified.

“We should uh,” Mark was looking everywhere but his face. “Go.” The silence stuck so heavy around them Ethan swore he might drop to the ground from it. That. Or the feeling on his lips that still permeated might make his legs give out from under him. 

“That was Iplier-” Ethan finally broke.

“Fuck. Yeah.” 

“So he’s-”

“Yeah. In with the mayor.”

“Yeah.” 

“ _ Fuck. _ ”

They stumbled home, a solid foot apart, unable to face one another. Ethan dropped his heavier clothing to the floor, leaving him in boxers and an undershirt, face hot as he heard Mark do the same.

He crawled into the bed, laying as far apart from Mark as possible. God, he wanted to lie close, but he could feel the pain beginning to strike through. They really shouldn’t have done that. He made it clear that he liked it a little too much and now…

Neither of them slept very well that night. 


	15. The Feast of Dyonaed

Ethan leaned gently against the balcony that faced out into the tiny garden courtyard of the small apartment complex, blinking at the daylight. He was barefoot, the warmth of the floorboards from the noon sun high above was a welcome comfort from the cold he’d woken up to today.

He and Mark hadn’t spoken to one another after it happened. Neither of them had made any attempts at conversation, and Ethan was too nervous about all of this to even try and say anything at all. 

He let out a long sigh and his face rested comfortably in his hands. It struck him how quiet the city could be, despite everything always moving around him. The chirping of a bird, or the soft clatter of a horse cart going by would somehow drown out the clanging of machines and people in the distance.

He heard someone walking up through the back alley, and saw Mark approach on the other side of the iron grate, pushing it open with his foot as he held two paper wrapped parcels in either hand, and one bitten between his teeth. He lifted his head to see Ethan standing above, nudging his hat up to get a better view before giving a little wave. 

Ethan smiled and waved back before Mark took the stairs two at a time. He handed Ethan one of the parcels before setting the one in his mouth on the ground next to him. 

“Find much?” Ethan unwrapped the little parcel to find a sandwich inside. He peeled it back a little as Mark spoke.

“It’s cheese, egg, turkey, and tomato.” Mark began unwrapping his own. “And yes, a bit. I managed to snoop a little around the festival grounds, and I happened to find everyone  _ but _ Iplier. Lainey, she’s one of the younger ones, I met her just before it all happened, she’s apparently slated for Dyonaed, who’s the next patron of the night. She was surrounded by other gang members, they all seem to be making up much of the acting committee.” 

“Do you think that’s how they’re getting in?”

“I _know_ that’s how they’re getting in, because that’s how I planned it almost a year ago.” 

“What?” Ethan questioned through a bite of sandwich. 

Mark rubbed the back of his neck with a hand, more of a habitual move than anything. “It was uh, right after that job in Catherina, when Iplier killed your dad, when you shot him in the shoulder. He started talking like, last ride territory. I think he finally realized that he wouldn’t live forever, and that when he did pass, he didn’t want his legacy tarnished by someone taking his gang’s name from him. He wanted to end it with a job that would make him rich, and finish with a bang that would have him talked about for the next hundred years.” He raised his eyebrows, shaking his head. “I don’t remember when we started working on it, but I know that at some point, it got too dangerous. There was no way we were all getting out of there alive. I told him what I thought, and he gave me this look, and I knew he didn’t care. I went to tell the others, and well, that’s when-” He gestured vaguely to where Ethan knew the scar on his side was hidden beneath his shirt.

“He tried to kill you.”

“And now he’s using my plan to make himself a whole lot of money before he fucks off to god knows where, killing a lot of decent people in the process.” Mark scratched the places where his beard was growing thicker than others. “I just didn’t expect him to cozy up to the mayor so directly, even if he does need...but I suppose because everything is done with a mask, he can’t be recognized." The man shook his head, as if trying to knock free whatever his brain couldn't grapple with. "It was so jarring to see him last night, after all this time...” 

“Yeah, uh, last night.” Ethan fiddled with the paper from his sandwich.

“I’m sorry about all of that,” he sighed. “I just got spooked, and it was the only thing I could think of to look less suspicious.”

“It’s fine,” he nodded quietly. 

“And I know how you felt about it.”

“You do?” The tips of his ears went red hot immediately, but luckily Mark was turned the other way. 

“Yeah, I shouldn’t have done it, it’s just, all I could think of in the moment.” 

“Sure...course.” He bit the inside of his cheek. “So tonight?” 

“Right, the feast. I’m pretty sure that Iplier’s keeping all of his people only around the mayor. Iplier considers himself a gentleman, despite all of what he’s done. I don’t think we need to worry about him being at the actual festival.” Mark crumpled the paper from his sandwich and tossed it off the balcony. “And since he arrived at around three yesterday, I think he’s going to do the same tonight. Which means that we’ll have time to head out to Bleaker’s Ridge.”

Ethan raised an eyebrow. “You want to check on their camp?”

“They’ve probably got only one or two guards on duty, it’ll be quiet enough for us to sneak in undetected, figure out what they’ve got, where they’re going.” 

Ethan nodded slowly. “So what exactly does this West Fiell job entail?” 

"A key, and if they're lucky, some quiet. But I can explain all of that when it comes to it."  Mark turned back to the courtyard, gripping the balcony barrier. “We’re so close, Ethan. I can almost fucking  _ taste _ it.” 

“He’ll bleed soon enough,” Ethan nodded. “And we can end this for good.” 

“Hell knows I’ve been waiting long enough.” Mark swiveled to lay his back against the balcony. “And you’ve got to promise me that we won’t get too drunk tonight.”

Ethan paused for a moment before replying. “I’ll try my best.”

*

Suffice it to say, Ethan failed miserably at his job. 

The two were stumble-running through the streets as the bell tower chimed three times in the distance. 

They’d arrived at the festival grounds a few minutes before eleven, where costumed masses sprawled everywhere. Ethan could smell food, but nobody appeared to be holding any, or even eating anything. 

Mark explained that the smell came from the tents, where food and drink were being prepared before they would fling open their doors at midnight and let the crowds rush in. He’d been right, as soon as the second masked god appeared, there was more food and drink in the vicinity than Ethan had ever seen before.

They’d both promised they’d stay sober, but that was broken the second they’d accidentally eaten rum cake that was more rum than cake, and both went wild. Now the two of them were scrambling to keep themselves standing as they bounded after one another, giggling the whole way.

They happened to spot the carriage leaving just as they arrived, hiding in the shadows as the doors to the mansion shut firmly. Mark went for their horses while Ethan kept watch on the carriage as it bounced and jostled through the city streets, and out towards the forested countryside. 

Ethan grabbed Spencer’s reins as Mark trotted by with Chica and the two took off after their target. Bleaker’s Ridge was a beautiful little hidden spot, kept secret by a small sea cave that could only be accessed when the tides weren’t high. Apparently this was why the Iplier’s had been coming and going at such odd hours.

Mark kept them back as they watched the carriage disappear beneath the cliffside, and they both dismounted. As the two of them noticed the guards posted up front, their humor went quiet quick as they both sobered up the best they could. 

Ethan surveyed the camp, noting that the two guards looked to be the only people there at all. He saw Mark’s posture sharpen again, like it had before in that way that made him worry. Ethan placed a hand on Mark’s shoulder and whispered lightly.

“I’ll sneak in, see what I can find. Hang back, if something goes wrong…” He tipped his head to the side. “Well, we’ll figure it out when we get to it.” 

Ethan stayed low in the brush as Mark hung back in the thick of the trees. The two guards appeared to be sharing a bottle of something, but were already heavily drunk. He slipped past them with ease, weaving his way through the maze of tents before finding the biggest of the bunch.

Ethan knew it was Iplier’s before he even stepped inside, the sides were made of thick canvas, and it looked sturdier than every other sleeping area in the camp. He was lucky that there were huge flaps that hung down to give some privacy, or else it would’ve made his job a lot more difficult. Ethan tip-toed in, fumbling for his lighter as he lit a flame in the oil lamp on a far desk. 

The inside was warm and dry compared to the night wind that shuddered against the sides of the shelter. There was a bed against the wall that was covered in nice furs, and a few places to store clothes and other trinkets. He took his time searching, but kept turning up nothing.

Ethan had felt like he’d dug through nearly everything when he was fiddling with the chest at the end of the bed, and noticed something odd. He’d been digging around the clothes, finding only empty dense wood at the bottom, when he realized the lid was a good two or three inches deeper than it appeared. A soft rapping against it confirmed that it was hollow, and he started pressing on the panel to try and get it to open.

As much as his dad had taught him about lock picking and secret compartments, the roof of the chest wouldn’t budge. Just as he was getting to the point of almost just shooting it off, he heard a pair of footsteps outside.

Ethan set the lid down in sudden panic, managing to soften the sound at the last second. He then dropped to the ground and rolled under the bed, slowing his breathing until it barely registered. The figure stepped inside, crossing the room slowly, and Ethan did everything not to move. They stopped in front of the bed, and turned slightly. 

“Gotcha!” A face appeared in the space, and Ethan had to keep the urge to slap Mark as the man giggled softly.

Ethan squeezed his way out from under the bed as Mark helped him up. “I thought I was in actual danger,” he hissed softly. “And you could’ve so easily just alerted them to us.”

“They’re too drunk to know we’re even here,” Mark rolled his eyes. “And you were taking too long. What did you find?”

“Not much, but there is a compartment in this chest, I think he might’ve hidden something here.”

“Oh yeah,” Mark turned to it. “The chest, I’m pretty sure I remember how to open it.” 

He pulled open the top, and hooked his fingers underneath. Mark pressed up firmly before letting go and then pressed up harder again before pressing the panel to the right. It popped open with ease, and inside they found a stack of cash, and piles and piles of maps. 

Maps of West Fiell, maps of the mayor’s mansion, and most importantly, maps of the West Fiell National Bank. 

As Mark went through the rest of it, a small scrap of paper caught Ethan’s eye. On it was a laundry list of items, but the most important ones on it were circled twice.  _ Wire, charges,  _ and a shit ton of  _ dynamite _ . 


	16. The Dance of Morjyenn

They arrived back in town sometime after five am, the sun beginning to peak over the horizon as the two spoke back and forth with an energy somewhere between excited and nervous. Ethan hadn’t slept in almost 20 hours, but it hadn’t quite hit him yet, and the unwavering energy coursed through him like a damn lightning strike. As soon as they were inside, Mark had grappled for some paper and a pencil, and had begun scratching down what he remembered from the maps and little bits of the plan. Ethan tried to help the best he could, but there wasn’t much more that he could do but pace to try to keep himself from imploding. 

“So the plan?” Ethan finally spoke as Mark tossed his papers onto the table. 

“It’s uh, it’s going to be something.” Mark cocked his head slightly. “How good are your dancing skills?”

“Not great-” He stopped in his tracks, raising a concerned eyebrow. “Exactly how in depth is this plan?” 

“Well, I’ve got to figure out a way to get us into the mayor’s mansion.”

“You want us to do  _ what _ ?” Ethan crossed the room to face Mark better. “I thought the plan was to stay as far away from Iplier as possible.”

“I know, but if they’re going after the bank…”

“You’re willing to risk it.”

“Especially since the masks will be at their most obnoxiously over the top tonight. And if Iplier found a way in, then we can too.” He looked Ethan up and down. “But we’ve gotta get you up to speed on dancing.” Mark stood, holding out his hand, and Ethan backed up a few inches on instinct. 

“Mark, I-”

The man sighed, but smiled, “c’mon, I don’t bite. Too hard. Besides, it’s impossible for you to pass off under the radar unless you know the Dance of Morjyenn. It’s not hard to learn, and you’ll stick out like a sore thumb if somebody notices you don’t know what you’re doing.” 

“Alright.” Ethan took his hand, and felt another wrap around his waist.  _ Oh no _ . 

“Follow me.”

It took all of his strength not to melt into putty as he followed the pattern Mark laid out before him. His hands were strong, with the kind of warmth that he’d only ever felt from a cup of coffee cooled to the perfect temperature.  _ One, two, three, one, two, three _ . Once he got the basic counting down, there wasn’t much more he needed to understand the rhythm Mark moved in. 

It almost got to the point that he was forgetting where he was, until Mark released his hand from his back, and placed a hand on his jaw to pull his face up so their eyes met. “Now try without staring at your feet.” 

_ Oh hell _ . 

It went about as well as he’d expected it too. He kept himself from tripping over Mark’s feet too much, but his eyes, his eyes were something so much more difficult to keep. 

“You’re doing so good,” Mark said in a low voice. Ethan immediately reacted to the words, his back straightening as his face no doubt was puckering with a tinge of pink. He managed to barely squeak out a thank you before he was being spun into a dip, and then back again. 

Mark pulled them to stop, let go of Ethan. “We don’t have music, so you’ll just have to wait until tonight to see if you can do all of that for real.”

“What about servants?” Ethan said it all in one breath. He didn’t even know how he thought of it, but the prospect of dancing in front of hundreds of people in costumes Iplier might recognize them in, terrified him. 

“What about them?”

“What if we went in dressed as servants, it fixes how we get in, and how we can mingle through the house without alerting anyone.” Ethan felt himself beginning to calm down a little, but that energy still coarsed through him. “The guards at the front, they were wearing masks, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the servants were too.” 

Mark paused for a second. “That’s actually...not too bad an idea.” The man rubbed his face. “God I need some sleep, you?”

Ethan shook his head. “I think I’m gonna go and check out the daytime festival.” He cleared his throat before adding. “Probably better to sleep in shifts anyway, for safety.” 

Mark nodded before crawling into the bed and leaving Ethan to himself.

He pulled on a coat and checked his pistols before heading out into town. It was quieter today, apparently most people were sleeping off last night’s hangover. The air was heavy with the smells of food and drink tossed into the streets and heaping over garbage cans. It wasn’t a pleasant smell, but it wasn’t entirely unpleasant either. With it, there was the slight smell of rain that hung ever so slightly above. 

Ethan headed over the bridge and into the fairgrounds, where a few people were still cleaning up from the night before. It was early in the morning and somewhat quiet, as the children of the city hadn’t seemed to get up for the day’s festivities quite yet.

He remembered the costume tent where they’d bought their clothes a few days prior, and popped his head in only to find it nearly empty. Ethan wouldn’t have stayed long if it weren’t for the pair of people digging around one of the bins. He recognized them from the camp, the two drunkards that'd been working as guards. 

Ethan pulled himself behind a rack of clothing, hiding from view but still ever so slightly being able to hear what they were saying.

“Shut up, it’s what the boss said,” one of them hissed to the other. “You know what happens to people who cross him.”

“They end up like that wackjob, I know, but why do we have to wait until the last night, doesn’t it feel like, I don’t know, he’s taking too long?” The other added something else, but dropped his voice so that Ethan couldn’t hear it.

“Better to trust.” The first slapped his friend's shoulder. “Fischbach, remember?”

“You shouldn’t even say his name,” the other hissed sarcastically. “Or else his ghost might come and slice you up like a side of beef.” 

“Do you really believe all those shit stories?”

“Hey, we both saw Harv’s corpse, and we both know what he and Fischbach got up to.” There was a slight pause and some rustling of clothing before the same voice continued. “And what else would be taking the mountain party so long, unless they got caught by the ghost of Mark Fischbach, and were brutally murdered.” 

“A snowstorm, probably.” 

Ethan rolled his eyes at the two of them. How right and wrong they both were.

He waited until they left before going through a few piles of costumes. A set happened to catch his eye, and before he could stop himself, he’d bought them both, along with two new masks. 

Ethan made a few rounds of the city before returning to the apartment. Mark was still asleep, and as much as Ethan wanted to curl up next to him, he kept himself on track, eating something small as he waited for the man to wake up. 

He did eventually, grumbling as he pulled himself to the table and Ethan handed him a flask of whiskey. Ethan told Mark what he’d seen, and about the men he’d overheard. Mark just nodded gravely before mumbling that Ethan should get some sleep.

He didn’t protest and passed out the second he managed to get comfortable.

When he woke again, it was late in the day, but still light out. Mark roused him gently, waiting for him to wake up fully as he explained the plan for the night. 

“I think I puzzled it out,” he told Ethan slowly. “They’re going to try and rob the bank on the morning of the fifth night. There’s this thing, where the five gods disappear for the evening, signifying them being taken back up by Maiida. I think that’s when they’re going to do it, when everyone is distracted so they can keep it quiet.” 

“So we go in tonight to do what?”

“Well, their goal is probably to keep it pretty quiet, the dynamite we saw, I think that’s just a precaution if they need to get the safes open quick and things go top-sides. Which is why we need to steal the key from the mayor.”

“The key?”

“There’s a skeleton key held by the mayor for a box kept in the bank, that holds all of the backup keys to every safe inside. It’s more of a placeholder, that he keeps everyone’s money safe, but it’s also, very real. I think he either keeps it around his neck, or possibly in an office. If anything, we need to find it and nab it before Iplier’s people do. It might help us stop them from robbing the bank in the first place. Catch them off guard.”

Ethan nodded, and the two of them grabbed some extra supplies before walking the short distance over to the mayor’s mansion. They arrived about six, and it was laughable how easy it was to convince the stressed out party organizers that they were just simply extra hands hired at the last minute to help with the party. 

In less than a half an hour they’d been given suits and masks, and places to venture during the night. Ethan had been designated as a waiter, and Mark as a guard to watch the party in case anyone of the guests got too rowdy. 

The manor remained empty for most of the evening, but as it grew closer and closer to midnight, Ethan could hear the sounds of people from outside filtering towards the mansion. He passed by the window a few times that faced the front courtyard, seeing a sea of people spinning around a center of musicians, all doing the same dance Mark had taught him earlier. 

Then, after a few hours, the doors burst open, and four masked individuals stepped inside. As soon as they closed again, masks were removed and faces fanned and fawned upon by servants. Ethan caught a better glimpse of the four as he finally saw them without masks. 

The first, Palonious, better known as Wes, handed Ethan his mask as he fixed his hair, striding into the main room where more servants waited with the more formal wear they would don for tonight. Wes was strangely alluring, with a pointed face and broad nose. Out of all of the Iplier gang members he’d seen, this man was the least battle scarred. 

The second, Dyonaed, was a heavier woman with silvery blonde hair and round cheeks tinged pink. Lainey, he thought Mark had called her. She used her hand to try and blow cool air towards herself, hurrying into the main room as Ethan took her mask too. 

The third and fourth Ethan didn’t recognize by name, but he knew that the shorter greying man was the mayor, and the taller figure with warm brown eyes that met him with a bright grin must’ve been someone else from the gang. Morjyenn, he was supposed to be playing. Ethan stacked the masks on top of one another, following closely after the mayor as he looked the man up and down for any sign of the key. 

As he passed into the main rotunda, Ethan made eye contact with Mark, who simply nodded at him by readjusting his mask with a hand. Ethan made sure to be in charge of helping the mayor into his more formal green suit. He’d already been told by the head organizer about this quick change, that the gods would put on their dancing clothing before greeting guests in towards the back.

This would be their one chance to check for a key on the mayor’s body. And if they found one, then Ethan would have to use the meager thieving skills he’d picked up from years of watching criminals, learning their ways. Mark had offered to do it, but Ethan knew that it would be too much risk, especially with so many of his old friends around that might recognize him. 

Ethan helped the mayor with the jumbling, loose fabric of the costume, keeping his eye close on Mark and the others as the head organizer shouted at them all to move faster, as if that was even possible. He waited with bated breath as the mayor pulled the last of his shirt over his head, only to find that...his chest was bare. Wherever the key was, it apparently wasn’t on his person. 

Ethan helped the mayor redress, handing back the masks to each god before they all scurried off towards the back garden. It wasn’t long before the organizer was shooing them back to their work, and Ethan tipped his mask to Mark. He found a secluded place where they wouldn’t be seen or heard, and just hoped that Mark would’ve been able to follow him.

Mark met him in the dark corner of a corridor, “what did you find?”

“Isn’t on his person,” Ethan murmured as softly as he could. “It’s somewhere else in the house.”

“ _ Shit _ .” Mark straightened a little. “Never can be easy, can it?” 

Ethan could hear the voices of guests as they streamed in through the front doors towards the back garden. “I guess we’re just lucky that it’s out in the back tonight.” 

“Or not,” Mark said suddenly. “Because I bet _they’re_ going to make a move for it.”

Ethan froze as he heard a pair of footsteps head their way before they turned and heading out in a different direction, settling back into an uneasy calm. “Then we’ve gotta get it first.” 

“And our plan for that?”

“Well, Iplier gets here about three, right? We’ll do it before then, and then we split back to the apartment.”

“That leaves us, what, twenty minutes maybe? And we can exactly just  _ leave _ in these uniforms.”

Ethan got a small smile on his face. “Remember the bags I had us bring with us?”

“I do,” Mark’s voice was muffled softly beneath his mask. “You have something in mind?” 

“Something,” he grinned.

The two knew that the key must’ve been hidden in the mayor’s office, and they’d both seen the blueprints of the house, but that didn’t make it any easier. Mark stood as authority outside doors as Ethan searched room after room, but there was little luck. Finally they decided they had to venture to the second floor. 

Mark stood at the base of the stairs, wishing Ethan luck as he ascended them. The first door was to a bedroom, and though Ethan searched it thoroughly, he didn’t find anything out of the ordinary. The next was an untouched guest bedroom, and again, nothing. 

Ethan searched through bathrooms and bedrooms, finding very little and freezing at the slightest sound. He knew it was getting close to three, the adrenaline pumping so firmly in his chest that it was hard to breathe.

Until he stepped into a dark study lined with books. There was a fireplace at the far end, and a single lamp that sat lonely on a desk. He oriented himself, not quite having the guts to try and light the lamp, and instead, he searched in the dark. Ethan pulled on the desk drawers before one of them stuck, and he realized, dropping to his knees, that there was a small space for a key.

He’d never had the chance to lockpick on a job before, but there was a first time for everything. Ethan pulled the small filament of wire from his pocket and began prodding around inside. It didn’t take long for it to click and open with a pop. 

Inside he was greeted with the shiny metallic surface of a small brass key, among a few other items. Ethan took the key and slid the drawer shut, locking it back into place.

Then outside the door he heard a noise, and saw a shadow pass in front of the light underneath the door frame. He barely had time to hide as the door was swung open, and someone stepped inside. 

Ethan had wedged himself behind the door, stilling his breathing enough to hope that the intruder wouldn’t hear him. The figure paused a second, “someone up here?” They said nothing as they waited, and eventually turned back around to leave. 

Ethan let himself relax, and waited a few beats before scurrying out of the room and down the hall. He’d calmed down by the time he’d reached the stairs, descending them like nothing had happened. Ethan cleared his throat as he passed Mark, moving forward through the manor as he heard Mark’s footsteps behind him. 

He turned a corner into a back room where they’d dropped their things. Ethan stripped carefully, throwing his uniform into a wicker bin in the corner as Mark entered and began doing the same. He handed the man the clothing he’d picked out earlier, and Mark only laughed lightly at it as Ethan left, pulling his new mask tight over his face. 

“Meet you back at the apartment,” he whispered before disappearing through the door.

Ethan wound his way through the mansion, his eyes locked ahead of him. Then he was stopped in his tracks at the sight of a pale mask with a hooked beak. 

Iplier was here. 

He pretended to have forgotten something before turning around and briskly walking back to where he’d come from. Ethan nearly slammed into Mark, weaving around him as the man regarded him with confusion. The second the chorus of footsteps passed however, Mark seemed to get the message and took off in the other direction. 

Ethan stepped out into the cool of the garden, where hundreds of party guests danced and mingled to the sounds of bewitching music. He felt for where he’d tucked the key into the folds of his clothes, and began moving through the crowds. Ethan followed Iplier with his eyes, and noted that his guards were standing watch at the doors back inside the house. There was no way they’d be able to get back inside now. 

Mark appeared on the steps, and seemed to catch Ethan’s glance for just a second. Ethan slowed his pace as Mark caught up to him, hand brushing Ethan’s elbow as he strutted past. 

He realized that there was a gate at the far end of the garden, they could make it out there, they could-

The tempo of the music changed as they threaded into a different song, and Mark froze as people began to shout with excitement. 

He turned to Ethan just before they were both grabbed by excited hands. Ethan managed to hear a few words before Mark was taken by an excitable woman in a bright pink gown and matching mask. “Full dance! Use what I taught-”

Ethan found himself at the mercy of a tall figure in purple robes as they grabbed for his hands. He did so just as the music began, and fell in line with his partner. This music was like nothing he’d ever heard before, upbeat and elegant while still managing to feel a bit loose at the same time. Ethan remembered what Mark had taught him well, only faltering a little, but others in the crowd appeared to be doing the same, probably from the amount of liquor sparking through their systems. 

He began to switch partner after partner as the song continued, and if it weren’t for the panic in his chest every time his eyes passed over the hooked beak of Iplier, he might’ve actually been having some fun. Ethan looked for Mark in the crowd, but still couldn’t find the bright red of the cloak and ensemble he’d bought for the man. 

Then he spun around, and found his hands clasped with the very man he’d been searching for. 

“Hi.” He was grinning brightly under the mask, even though he knew Mark couldn’t see him. He looked so alive in red, his eyes glowing through the spaces in the mask where Ethan could meet his gaze

“Hello.” As they moved through a closer motion, Ethan heard Mark whisper something to him. “Follow my lead.” The song was slowing, and the tempo was different than what Ethan was used to.

They spun through the motions at half-speed, somehow managing to move in perfect harmony, hand over hand, chest to chest at places that made Ethan’s heart nearly burst from their proximity. Then a hand slid up to his back as the song pulled to a close, and he was pulled down into a low dip. 

Ethan couldn’t see Mark’s face, but his eyes held that honeyed glow, the warmth that melted him over and over again, and their masks were close enough to barely brush against one another. There was clapping from the guests at the musicians, but the two of them held there.

There was a hoot from the crowd of guests, and a loud wolf whistle as someone shouted out. “Save it for the temptations!” 

Mark raised Ethan back up to full height, still not quite pulling away. “We should really go,” he murmured.

“Uh, yeah, right,” Ethan replied.

He shook off the warm blush on his face, t he two slipping through the crowd and out the gate, laughing like fiends as they ran through the slowly emptying streets. 


	17. The Temptations of Hovikka

Ethan held the key up to the light of the far window, squinting at it closely. 

“I can believe that this little thing opens up, well, so much.” 

Mark turned his head from where he sat in a chair, grinning brightly. “And you’re the one that stole it.” 

“That I almost got caught doing,” Ethan retorted with a snort. He settled back into the chair across from Mark, who was writing a few notes on a sheet of paper. 

It was later in the morning, the two of them had just woken up after crashing the night before. Ethan had tucked the key behind a loose board, just in case, and only now had time to actually look at it. 

“I’m just surprised that it actually went off without a hitch.” Mark set the pencil he was writing with down and crossed his arms against his chest. “And now, we get to play the waiting game.”

“Do you think they’ll abandon their plan altogether?”

“No, Iplier’s too smart for that, I’m assuming they’ll just go ahead with their dynamite, which will make it easier for us to do what we need to.” 

Ethan raised an eyebrow. “And you have a plan for that?” 

“Soon,” Mark nodded. “But for tonight, we’ll let them squirm a little. The mayor doesn’t hold a party on temptations, because the festivities of Hovikka, well, some of the goings on wouldn't reflect back on the mayor all that well.” 

Ethan felt his mouth go a little dry. “Are we going out tonight?”

“If you want,” Mark smiled. If Ethan hadn’t been looking for it, he would’ve missed the flicker of Mark’s eyes across his body. “It’s an interesting night to say the least. Lot of clothes that are...nonexistent.” 

“People just walk around  _ nude? _ ”

“Sure, as long as they don’t go too far with it. Most of the nudity is kept within the tents on the festival grounds.” 

Ethan’s eyebrows raised higher than he thought they’d go. “Is it all like...that?” 

“Some of it is more tasteful, burlesque and the sort.” 

He nodded slowly, and Mark only grinned wider.

“Have you ever seen anything like it before?”

“A brothel and a sheriff usually get on like oil and water…more or less I’ve only even seen _that_ in the context of certain arrests I’ve made.” 

Mark opened his mouth in a sort of, “ah,” as he bobbed his head. “Then we should go! But,” he held out a finger, “I think we should get piss-drunk first, everything’s better when your mind’s a little numb.” 

“Deal.”

The rest of the day, and part of the evening, went by like it was nothing, and soon they were pulling on jackets and masks as they headed down to the grittier saloon down the street, where they would hopefully slip under the radar. Ethan drank enough to get the soft pink to his cheeks and a laugh he couldn’t control from spilling out wherever it wanted, and as midnight struck, he and Mark stumbled out into the street. He almost didn’t freeze when Mark leaned against him for support, his hand finding that space on the small of his back that normally made his stomach do somersaults. 

Apparently he was too drunk to even register it entirely. 

The two of them headed into the festival grounds, and were greeted by bare chests and scantily clad bodies near immediately. 

A woman in a silk face covering and barely anything else waved her hands to guide people into the first of the bigger tents that had been pitched for tonight’s event. “See the great belly dancers of the old country!”

Ethan turned to Mark, and the man shrugged and nodded, and they two of them headed in. The lights grew dim, as a barrage of women in very little clothing began to dance as promised. There was a lot of hollering and hooting, but Ethan didn't really understand what everyone liked about it so much. They watched for a while before moving on back into the crowds of people outside.

The two of them continued their walking along, sampling the earthly delights of flesh, and moving on.  Ethan wandered on through the growing swarms, looking on at every strange goings-on with a mix of confusion and amazement. In all his life, he’d never seen anything like  _ this _ . He found himself wandering into a tent off towards the back, filtering in the crowd. Ethan hadn’t even noticed that Mark was gone until now, and searched for him before he was jostled forward by another festival goer and had to take a seat in one of the makeshift chairs.

He was about to stand to leave when the lights went down suddenly, and music that all at once sounded familiar and foreign, began. Dancers wearing tight clothing strutted onto the wooden panelling laid down on the ground, and began to move wildly with the music. They entwined and twirled, and though it was strange, he could see the appeal of this sort of dance. It was mesmerizing, if anything. 

Ethan stayed until the dance ended before remembering that Mark was missing, and hoped that the man wasn’t too worried about him. He walked out of the tent and searched for a while, but it would be hard to ask around about Mark, especially when they were trying too hard not to arouse suspicion. 

At one point he thought he spotted the familiar black mask, but the clothes were all wrong, and he continued on. Ethan searched through tents and booths, and even a few of the back stalls, but there was no sign of Mark.

He headed to check one final spot, a smaller tent behind the ferris wheel, and if there was no sign of Mark, he'd just go back to the apartment, and just regroup with him there. 

Ethan didn’t even hear them approach.

He was ambling along when they jumped him out of nowhere. He’d moved quickly, but his pistols had been left at home, and they outnumbered him three to one.

“Out by yourself?” A gruff voice hissed from the darkness. “On  _ temptations _ ?” 

A second voice replied. “Don’t mind if we do, especially with someone as fine as you.”

“What-?” Ethan took a step backwards as the two appeared, looking as menacing as they sounded. He moved to run, but slammed into the chest of someone standing behind him. “What are you-”

The man grabbed his hands, and the three pulled him back into the darkness, promising horrible things. He cried out, but he knew that there would be no one around to hear him.  The best he could do was fight them off while he had the chance. Ethan managed to kick one square in the dick, and slam another in the face with his flailing hands, but they only laughed him off and threw him to the ground easily. 

“Ooh, we got a fighter?” 

The tallest of the three barred down on top of him, and Ethan raised his hands to fight again, when another voice broke through the mix.

“You three better fuck off right now unless you want trouble.” 

Ethan could see the silhouette of a man against the lights behind him. 

“What do you think we’re trying to do,” one of the men snickered.

“Piss off,” another protested. “It’s temptations.”

“Alright.” Mark moved faster than a lighting strike, and the middle of the three screamed and dropped to the ground. In the darkness, Ethan could see the glint of a knife, and the heavy breath as the second man fell. The third raised his hands up in retreat, blubbering something fierce before running off.

“Where have you been?” Mark’s voice was calm now, quiet. He dropped to the ground, helping Ethan up slowly.

“Where have  _ you _ been?” Ethan asked with acquisition. 

“You just walked off, I’ve been looking for you for the last hour.” He shook his head. “I shouldn't have let you out of my sight.”

“I was looking for you!” Ethan exclaimed. “But I'm fucking glad you found me when you did.” 

“I should’ve warned you about that too," Mark ran a hand up over his head to muss up his hair. "People think they can get away with some bad shit during temptations, I should’ve told you to bring your pistols, or a knife at least, but I thought that we would’ve stayed together.”

Ethan was suddenly aware that Mark hadn’t let go of him since he’d helped him stand up. “Aw, it’s almost as if I’ve made that cold, dead, outlaw heart of yours feel something,” he prodded Mark in the chest at every other word for emphasis.

He expected Mark to laugh, but he felt his grip tighten slightly. “Something, maybe.” 

Ethan’s eyes must’ve widened, betrayed him in some way, because Mark let him go immediately. “We should go,” he said softly. “Unless-”

Ethan rubbed the cooling places where Mark’s finger had just been. “No, let’s go.” 

The walk back was mostly quiet, save for the few people stumbling home through silent streets. Ethan felt like he was missing something. 

The two of them turned into the alleyway that would bring them back to the apartment courtyard when Ethan spoke. “Y’know, I probably could’ve taken those guys.”

“Yeah right,” Mark chuckled. “You? Bare fisted, could’ve taken on them?” 

“Hey, I’ve gotten into a scrap or two in my life.” 

Mark looked him up and down. “Sure.”

Ethan then stopped completely. “I’ll prove it to you. Fight me, right here, right now. I’ll prove to you that I can stand up for myself.” 

Mark let his head loll as he turned around to face him. “I’m not going to fight you.” Ethan immediately squared up, and he heard Mark let out a sigh. “Don’t be a fucking dumbass.” 

Ethan threw a punch at his shoulder, but Mark moved himself to let it glance off. He spun slightly to reorient himself, and cocked his head in a way that made Ethan want to pummel his face in and kiss him until he couldn’t breathe at the same time. He forced his lips together and threw another punch to Mark's shoulder, his bad shoulder, this one hitting harder than the first.

Mark grunted slightly, taking a step back as his hand rubbed the sore spot, and then moved them up to rest up in front of his face. “Sheriff...”

Ethan shifted again, throwing another hand towards Mark’s chest, but instead of his fist connecting with skin, he felt his legs being swept out from under him in a swift motion. He clattered to the ground like a rag doll, but caught himself on a hand, and leapt backwards out of the dirt before Mark could grab him. Ethan snatched the arm that was still grasping air, twisting it behind Mark’s back as he slammed the man against the wall.

“I can defend myself.” He said firmly, pushing Mark’s forearm into his lower back a little harder. The man let out a soft gasp that made Ethan falter. 

Mark took the chance, and whipped in a motion that nearly snapped Ethan’s wrist as he reversed their positions, grasping for Ethan’s hands. He squirmed the best he could, but Mark was stronger than he was by a country mile. 

He slammed Ethan’s wrists against the alley wall on either side of his head, the anger in his eyes still burning. “Stop.” Mark's eyes searched him, but the emotion behind them was beginning to change.

T hey were close now to a point that Ethan wasn’t sure if his heartbeat was adrenaline or the fact that he was currently being pinned to the wall by Mark’s knee against his thigh. 

“I told you,” Ethan growled. “I know how to protect myself.” He used what Mark had just done a few seconds earlier to his advantage, sweeping his left leg out from under him, but Mark seemed to anticipate that, and wrapped his hands around Ethan’s wrists to take him down with him.

Mark landed on the ground with a heavy thump, Ethan falling with his chest slamming against Mark’s stomach. In the second it took for Mark to try and regain the wind that had just been knocked out of him, Ethan sat up, sliding his wrists free, legs straddling the man’s stomach. This time he pinned Mark’s wrists down against the ground, grinning as he sat on top of him. He let himself hang down so that their noses were a few inches apart.

“How do you like that? Hmm?”

Mark was speechless in a way that sent shockwaves of that familiar panic through Ethan. That overwhelming feeling that made him do stupid, stupid things because he couldn’t think at all.  _ Fuck _ , he had it bad. 

“I uh,” Ethan stuttered, letting Mark’s wrists loosen just slightly in his grip. “I think I proved my point?”

“You did, I think.” Then Mark flipped him all at once, laughing at Ethan’s face as his head hit the dirt. “But not for long.” He sat back as Ethan groaned in pain, grinning. “Face it, I could pound you into the ground.”

“I wish you would,” Ethan laughed before realizing what he said.  _ Oh hell, the drink had gotten to him more than he’d realized. _

Mark paused for a moment, his eyebrows furrowing before he seemed to catch it as a joke. “You wanna get beat up that badly?” The man rolled off of Ethan, standing before holding out a hand for him to take. 

Ethan took it, letting himself go as he spoke his words with finality, never looking away from Mark’s eyes. _Fuck it._ “There’s a lot I want to do.” 

Ethan was the first to turn away, pushing the gate open and heading up the stairs to the balcony. He heard Mark’s footsteps, but he didn’t turn to see if the man followed. Ethan had reached the door when he felt the hand on his shoulder. He could barely react when it flipped him around and thrust him against the closed door.

A tingling sensation ran across Ethan’s skin as Mark clasped his hands on either side of his shoulder. He nearly shook when he realized that Mark was watching him with a hunger he hadn’t seen before. 

“Can I do something stupid?” He was so close in that moment, close enough that Ethan could almost see the hummingbird pulse that thrummed through him.

He could smell the sour and salt, the warm and cold within Mark. Ethan’s voice was so soft that it barely even echoed in his throat. “Something more stupid than us wrestling in the dirt?” His eyes were tracing Ethan’s, almost to a point of pleading. Ethan dropped his gaze to Mark’s slowly parting lips answering quietly. “By all means.”

Mark’s hands found their place in his hair almost immediately, pushing forward to press their lips together like if he didn’t, something in him might break. The first kiss was sweet, delicate almost, and when they pulled away from each other, Ethan thought that that might be it. Mark was deeply flushed, murmuring apologies, sputtering that he was sorry. But Ethan tightened his grip on the fabric of Mark’s shirt, and tugged him back against his lips.

And then it was like a dam had broken. 

All that was unsaid slammed into them at once, and Ethan was worried that they might break the door if Mark pushed him against it any harder. His mouth had slipped open as one hand cupped his face, and the other buried itself deeper in his hair. Ethan grasped for Mark’s hips, finding where his shirt was tucked in, and fiddled his way underneath it to run his hands up the man’s back. 

They didn’t pull away until they were both red faced and sputtering. 

“Keeping going?” Mark asked in a few gasped words.

“Inside,” Ethan replied. 

They’d barely gotten the door shut behind them before Ethan was pinned against it again, barely managing to keep himself upright as Mark’s fingers grasped deep into the muscle of his thighs. He let out a whimper against Mark’s lips, letting him catch his lower lip softly beneath his teeth. 

_ God why hadn’t they done this so much sooner _ .

Mark clustered slow moving kisses down the corner of his lip, to push into the curve of his neck. His breath was so warm, and Ethan let an exhalation shake through him as Mark licked a stripe up the side of his neck to the place where his pulse thrummed against his throat. Mark bit at it tenderly, suckingly slightly enough that Ethan had to grab onto his back to keep his legs from falling out from under him. He grasped onto what he could of Mark’s shoulder, his fingers raking slowly down the man’s back, enough to make him groan against where he planted small bruises on Ethan’s collarbone. 

Mark pressed their hips together, grinding against Ethan with a low groan as he connected their lips back together again. Ethan thrust his hands into Mark’s hair, holding on with all his might as Mark went back to digging his fingers into the soft spots on either side of Ethan’s thighs. 

Ethan seemed to get the message, and slid his legs slightly apart to let the man get better leverage as he lifted Ethan up onto his hips, rolling the two of them together and eliciting a plethora of sounds from the both of them. Mark carried Ethan to the bed in the back of the room, setting him down on the edge of it as he stood back.

Mark pulled his shirt up over his head, and Ethan did the same, unbuttoning his top and tossing it aside as Mark stood over him for a moment. His eyes had a deep heat behind them, and if Ethan wasn’t already mostly hard against his pants, he would’ve been from that gaze alone. 

“You wanna do this?” Mark asked, almost out of breath.

“Yeah, yes,” Ethan panted. He fumbled over his words, “please.” 

“Have you ever-?”

“No, but, I can,” Ethan had never felt so flustered in his life. He sat up, pulling Mark towards him by his hips. He ran a hand over where the front of Mark’s pants bulged forward uncomfortably. “I understand what I’ve got to do.” Ethan undid the man’s belt, pushing his pants out of the way, leaving only a pair of black cotton boxers underneath. 

He reached within, running a finger over the growing shaft before removing the underwear entirely. Ethan wasn’t quite sure what to do at first, but he knew what he liked on the nights he could get to himself, slow and methodical, and he did just that. He looped his forefinger around and ran it down the base of the shaft, stroking with his thumb upwards to rub where the shaft met the head of Mark’s dick. 

Ethan leaned forward and began rolling his tongue on the tip of it, eyes watching as Mark braced himself, eyes tightened shut as he let out deep rolling moans. God he looked fucking incredible. Ethan teased him a little more until he felt Mark’s hips rock slightly, and swallowed him down easily. He swirled his tongue around again and again as Mark found purchase with his hands tangled within Ethan’s hair. 

“Slow...please-” Mark murmured. “I’ll-” But Ethan wouldn't let up, and he let himself be used as the man let out a series of low moans. Mark shuddered slightly as he came, fingers tightening enough in his hair that Ethan felt his own dick twitch against his pants. “ _ Fuuuuck.”  _ Mark rode out the high against Ethan’s cheek before he pulled out, mumbling something about wanting to wait. “Lemme-” he fiddled with Ethan’s pants. “Lemme get you.” 

Ethan wrapped his hand around Mark’s, keeping his fingers at bay and pulling him down close as he murmured something softly. “Inside.”

“You said-”

“First time for everything.”

“You sure?”

“Please. I just want you.” Ethan turned himself over, unbuttoning his pants and shimmying out of them. 

Mark’s hands grasped either side of his ass, pulling down the final layer that separated them. Ethan felt something press against his asshole, and gasped lightly as a wettened fingertip teased inside him slowly. Ethan let out a few strong moans out of him as he arched his back into the pain. He’d never felt anything like it before. He shut his eyes and leaned forward against the bed, letting a second finger in to slowly work him open, and nearly crying out as Mark added a third. 

“Ready?” Mark sounded unsure.

“Yes, yes, please, do it.” Ethan bit his lip, hands folded over his head as he waited in baited anticipation.

He nearly blacked out as Mark’s cock pressed against him slowly. “Oh,  _ holy _ fuck.” Ethan arched his back again, letting himself take it in as slow as he could. He was nearly whimpering as Mark began to slowly rotate his hips again, but not daring to move forward more. “You’re a damn tease,” Ethan cried out. He tried to catch his breath, but the feeling was so fucking intense he wondering what Mark rutting full force into him would feel like. “Are you going to move?”

“Can you ask nicely?” Mark’s voice was deep enough to make him cum right then and there. “Beg me for it?” He’d leaned in close enough that Ethan could feel the brush of his stubble against the curve of his shoulder. “Tell me how badly you want me to fuck you until you scream?” 

“Please, god, please.” Ethan moved his ass, trying to get a little friction, but Mark’s hand on the small of his back kept him from feeling too much. “Fuck, move, please?” 

Ethan felt Mark leave him all at once, only thinking to brace himself as he felt the man slam into him. He gripped the sheets with what strength he had, whimpering and moaning out with every movement. One hand controlled the curve of his hip, the same strong calloused lines he’d fantasized about holding him for the past few days. The other hand grasped up into his hair, pulling him back up with a cry of pleasure.

“Shit, damn,” Mark’s voice was so low it rumbled through the both of them. “Holy hell, you’re tight.” 

The two of them hit a certain rhythm, and Ethan could barely take it, crying out and shoving his hand over his mouth to keep himself quiet as his body continued to react to what was happening. It was hard to think with everything happening, he could only keep his voice low and his body tensed backwards. 

He heard Mark groan loudly and arched his back again, feeling Mark move his hand from his hair and trail down him and underneath him to grasp his dick. The man stroked him as he pounded Ethan from behind, using his already slicked hand to mimic the speed of his hips.

Neither of them were quiet anymore, but neither of them cared. Ethan was repeating the same sets of words, moaning and mewling as he lost himself in how _much_ he felt. 

“I’m gonna, oh fuck.” Ethan sputtered out as he came, dropping back onto the bed as Mark rode out his own building orgasum. The man gripped Ethan tight as he gasped, exploding inside, before falling forward slightly. 

“That was…” Ethan let them pull apart, turning over onto his back and running a hand through his hair. “ _ Fuck _ I’ve never... _fucked_ like that before.” 

“Temptations, man,” Mark replied. “Brings out everything you don’t expect.” 

It fell quiet for a brief moment before Ethan spoke again. “I never thought that you would-”

“And I thought that you were-”

Ethan laughed and ran a hand through where Mark’s hair stuck with sweat to his forehead. “Yeah, not as much as I thought either.” 

“I like you more than I meant to,” Mark murmured. “I hope that’s okay.”

“It’s more than okay.” He rolled over to face the man. “I just wish we’d fucking figured it out sooner.” 

A resounding laugh, weak from exhaustion but warm from the afterglow echoed in the room. 

“I’m sure,” Mark grinned in the way that made the floor of Ethan’s stomach drop out from under him, “we can make up for lost time.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi y'all! thanks for sticking with me so far. sorry about the length between the last update, quarantine's been kicking my ASS and for clear reasons, I didn't want this chapter to be half-baked. (though hopefully the content made up for it!) I'm hoping to get updating a little more frequently as we round out the last few chapters!


	18. The Revelry of Baldin

The apartment was quiet as Ethan packed up the last of their things into the bags they’d brought with, and checked over the rooms to make certain he hadn’t forgotten anything. Last night had been a blur, through sex and conversation, and eventually sleep, Ethan knew that what they’d done would be etched in his mind forever.

He lugged the last of his pack over his shoulder and took one last look at the place. It was the same as they had left it, save for a set of costumes they were leaving behind. Ethan felt a slight pang in his chest, triple checking that he’d tucked the pale mask into the folds of his things. 

There was no way he was going to leave that behind. 

He headed out, closing the door behind him and stepping onto the balcony. Two voices speaking in muddled French caught his attention, and Ethan turned to see Mark and the woman, Madame, he thought Mark had called her, chatting cordially. They both held cups of steaming liquid, and Ethan smiled as he headed down the stairs and into the courtyard to sling their things over Spencer and Chica’s backs. 

They were heading to stake out the bank, watch for anything they might be able to catch before the gang arrived in the early hours of the morning. Mark hadn’t been specific about anything, but he knew the plan by heart, and Ethan trusted him. He patted Spencer’s side, running a hand over the barrel of his rifle.

He hoped that he would only have to use it on the gang today. And even more, he hoped that they could end this for good. He wanted to take that angry pain behind Mark’s eyes away for good, give him the closure and respite he deserved.

Though there was a part that nagged at him to keep fighting. He knew that when this was over, they might part ways forever. Mark’s words stayed with him,  _ “I like you more than I meant to.”  _ The sentiment was the same for him too, he hadn’t expected to feel so suddenly and so deeply. 

_ Would Mark stay with him if he asked? _

A boundless laugh came from the balcony, and Ethan heard a pause before Mark appeared at the top of the steps. He grinned the stupid grin that made his stomach go a little topsy-turvy, and jogged the distance between them.

“What was that about?” Ethan called out. 

“Just thanking her,” he slowed as he grew close. Mark stepped near enough that Ethan could feel that familiar warmth of him. “And apparently, she could hear everything.”

Ethan’s face flushed very quickly. “She did?” He managed to squeak. 

Mark leaned forward to fix a button Ethan hadn’t done properly. He leaned in close to Ethan’s ear and murmured, “everything.”

He brushed playfully at Mark’s shirt, but couldn’t manage to hide the flustered tone in his voice. “You really are a fucking tease,” he huffed. 

Mark only laughed as he pulled away and rounded Spencer to pull himself up onto Chica’s back. The two rode through the city streets, and Ethan admired all of the decorations going up for the final night, which Mark had explained was the biggest of the festival, and the only one universally celebrated. 

It was a day for ‘kind surprises’, and usually entailed everything from small gifts to wedding proposals. Masks were nailed onto walls, and banners with the emblems of the gods were hung throughout the city streets. 

The two of them hitched up their horses, and headed into a little restaurant that sat across the street from the bank. Ethan eased back into his seat, and the two ordered drinks before turning their head out the window towards the entrance to the bank. 

“So what exactly are you planning to do?” 

Mark didn’t say anything for a beat, before he furrowed his eyebrows and spoke. “I’m pretty sure they’ll hit it tonight. Well, technically, tomorrow morning. We’ll stay here waiting for them, and when they head in, we’ll corner them. I just need to make sure nobody gets in without us knowing.” 

It was close to late evening, and the sun had begun to set as they’d entered. They watched the entrance of the bank, finding it to mostly include the comings and goings of normal people. At one point Mark bristled, but he settled after the figure he suspected turned back towards them. As the clock tower in the distance struck eleven, Ethan rose from the table. 

“I’m going to check on the vantage points,” he murmured.

Mark nodded slowly. “Stay safe,” the words were so quiet, Ethan might’ve missed them. He smiled with a pink flush, and went to Spencer’s saddlebags to retrieve the bone colored mask. Ethan secured it on his face and began to walk the streets around the bank.

Whenever anyone would near looking suspicious of him, he’d get a drunken wobble in step, singing a little tune under his breath. And if anyone got worryingly close, he’d simply made sure that his pistols were visible. After what had happened with temptations, he was never letting them leave his side again. 

When the clock struck one, Mark appeared next to him like a shadow, pressing him into a darkened alleyway. “My, my, who finds themself alone on a night like this?” Mark’s words dripped with honeyed intent. 

Ethan pushed him away with a grin. “Don’t even try that. I’m not gonna get you off in some random alley.” He couldn’t see Mark’s face, but his eyes beneath his mask looked pouty. 

“You nearly did yesterday,” the man teased. 

Ethan went red. “That was different!” He regained composure, focusing back on the reason they were here in the first place. “And aren’t we supposed to keep watch on the bank anyway?” Ethan took a step out into the street, scanning it down, but finding no one. 

It had been quiet since midnight, he supposed most people were down at the festival, or had already gone to bed. 

“They’ll probably get here around three, but it doesn’t hurt to watch.” Mark stepped back out onto the street. “I’ll go get our things from the horses.” 

Ethan kept watch until Mark returned, handing him a shotgun, which he slung over his back. He was hoping that he wouldn’t need it. The two hung back in the shadows around the bank until just before three am, which was when something caught Ethan’s eye. 

He noticed a group of riders heading into town up from the mountains that wrapped around the back of the city. They headed a while in, before stopping and dismounting on a ridge. He pointed it out to Mark, and it wasn’t long before masked faces appeared in the moonlight.

A man peeled out of darkness, and then another, and another, until Ethan could make out a whole host of them striding towards the bank. He motioned to Mark, and the two of them snuck towards the entrance. 

They hid behind the side wall, Ethan peering over to see that one of them was picking to lock while the others kept watch. They all appeared to be armed to the teeth. Rifles and shotguns were strapped against chests, and the group seemed to sag down with the amount of ammunition they carried. 

The door clicked open, and the gang slipped in through the open entrance. Ethan patted Mark’s chest with the back of his hand before lurching forward in a crouch after them. He slipped his fingers through the entrance just before the door closed, holding it open the few inches they needed. 

Ethan peered inside, and watched as they began opening up bags filled with what looked like dynamite. He motioned to Mark, and the man ran to him in the same crouched motion. Ethan pointed to Mark and then himself, then to the slightly open door, and then put a finger to his lips. Mark seemed to get what he meant, and slid inside through the slightly opened crack. 

Ethan watched Mark tip-toe in, timing his movements as he crouched behind the side of a teller window. Ethan waited until all of the gang inside had turned away before he himself pushed inside, pulling the door shut silently and slipping behind the teller booth opposite Mark. 

He could hear a group of hushed voices, their words too muddled to quite make out. It was clear that they were hurrying, they wouldn’t have much time to blow the place, get the money, and get out before the cops were alerted. Ethan saw Mark move out of the corner of his eyes, and the man made a motion with his hand.  _ Move up _ . 

Ethan grasped his pistol as he edged forward, watching as the gang members affixed sticks of dynamite to the fronts of safes. He watched as Mark aimed his weapon at the back of a head, and did the same, finding a target. His eyes darted to Mark again and again as the man waited.

He was watching Iplier. 

The figure with the hooked beak shifted around in front of them, as the man inside turned around to look towards his compatriots. In all of the scuffle, the man didn’t say anything Ethan could hear. Ethan readjusted his grip, moving enough to snap Mark out of the funk he seemed to be in.

Mark looked back at him. He mouthed a single word, “ _ ready?”.  _ Ethan nodded, and in that moment, everything became very, very loud. 

He managed to hit two of them before they all scattered, jumping behind teller windows and shouting at one another to get to cover. Ethan tracked Iplier with his gun as the man searched with the empty black eyes for who had shot at them, before disappearing around a corner.

Ethan flipped down from where he'd nestled himself into the window side, glass shattering into his hair as a bullet whizzed past his face. He pressed his back against the cool of the wood, taking in a breath as he cocked his gun again. Ethan heard a pair of footsteps rounding the corner, and lifting the gun up without even thinking. 

A figure in a blue mask stepped out of the darkness and Ethan got a few clear shots into his chest. The man slumped to the ground, and Ethan crawled forward. He could hear voices shouting from around him, and he kept his head down to keep it from getting blown off. 

Ethan pulled the shotgun from his back and clicked the safety off, searching for where he'd last seen gunfire coming from. He spotted a muzzle flash and fired, reloading his gun when it didn't fire again.  Ethan managed to spot one running stupidly down the middle, and shot their legs out from under them. 

He fired wherever he heard more footsteps, from around corners, through windows. If he hit people, he didn’t see them, only the bodies of those who had fallen. 

Gunfire echoed throughout the confines of the back, and Ethan crawled towards where he’d seen Mark last. He heard less shots now, and as he turned a corner, he saw Mark shoot a figure in a black bird mask in the chest with a rifle. 

Behind Mark, a figure in a yellow halved mask rose, the smile on it cruel as he pointed his pistol down at Mark’s head. Ethan reacted quicker than he ever had before, shooting the man directly in the side of the head and watching him slump to the ground.

He jogged over to where Mark stood, hand holding a death grip on the butt of his rifle. "Hope that was enough to pay you back for all the times you've saved my ass." Mark didn't seem to register his words, his head cocked as if listening to phantom gunshots.

“I think that was all of them,” Mark said breathlessly. “Except-”

“Iplier?”

“Yeah.” Mark leapt over the teller booth and into the main entry walkway. “Fucker must’ve run at the first sign of trouble. Typical.” He headed towards where the dynamite was stuck onto the sides of the safes. "Cops'll be here soon, so we gotta work fast, but-"

Ethan followed slowly, “what exactly do you have in mind...?”

“Well.” Mark unstuck a piece of the wired dynamite with a hefty tug. “Would be a shame if all of this dynamite went to waste,” the grin on his face was unmistakable. “And there’s a camp full of people that need dying.” 


	19. Dynamite

Ethan had never ridden a horse quite as hard as he had out of the city that night. With dynamite strapped to their backs, and a sort of hot anger behind their eyes, they spurred their horses on towards Bleaker’s Ridge. 

“This is gonna move fast, so whatever you do, don’t lose sight of me.” Mark turned his head, shouting to Ethan. 

“Right!” 

The two of them could see the telltale curls of smoke from the camp, and Mark pulled Chica to a dead stop, swiveling his bag so he could get a better grip on the dynamite. “Got your lighter?” 

Ethan pulled the thing from his pocket, snapping it open. “Yup.” 

“Good. I’m gonna take the left side, you take the right, we’ll curl around from the top and bombard them with everything we’ve got.” He had that same devilish fire behind his eyes, burning hot from the tail end of what had happened in the bank. “Whatever happens, keep moving, keep your head down, and if anyone makes it out, we follow them.” 

With a hoot, Mark took off, and Ethan did the same, grabbing out a stick of dynamite before spurring Spencer down the side of the ridge. It wasn’t long before there was the telltale boom of an explosion from the camp. Ethan lit the fuse on his stick of dynamite and tossed it over the edge. It exploded in a fiery glory, plumes of smoke and flame bellowing up like a long held breath. There were the shouts of people below as the fire from the explosion began to take to wagons and dry tinder in the area. 

He kept riding, chucking dynamite over the edge until Bleaker’s Ridge wasn’t much more than a hell pit, flames dancing against the treeline, flashing an orange glow on the stark pale white of the rocks. 

Ethan caught up to Mark as he rushed down to the beach, where the flames bubbled so hot, the sand was beginning to form into chunks of molten glass. 

Mark’s face was red from the heat, and he’d pulled a bandana up over his nose and mouth to help with the flames. “No sign of Iplier,” he shouted over the roar of the fire that was licking ever closer. “I think that everyone was here, I think he’s the last, I don’t know where-”

A volley of gunshots crackled through the air, and the two looked up to see a lone horseman on a midnight black horse standing above them on the ridge. His pistol was stretched skyward, his face still obscured by the bone-colored mask. 

Mr. Iplier grasped the reins of his horse and pulled it up to rear it's front legs up. Everything about the action screamed,  _ come and get me _ . 

And Mark didn’t have to be told twice. 

He’d already kicked Chica into a gallop before Ethan even had time to react to what was happening. Mark took off back up the ridge, and Ethan saw him draw the pistol from his belt. Firing it twice towards Mr. Iplier before the man turned his rearing horse in one motion, and spurred it off into the woods. 

Ethan took a second to catch his breath, the heat was getting to him, before he patted Spencer’s neck, murmuring. “Sorry boy, more hard riding,” and rode towards where the two had disappeared into the woods.

He could barely track them through sight alone, it was only just beginning to get light out over the lake to the east, but he heard gunshots in the distance, and knew well enough where they were. The woods were growing thick with trees, brush knocked over by the footfalls of uncareful horses, and Ethan did his best to follow, but the rocky terrain was making it difficult. 

The Southern Alpine mountain ridge loomed ahead, and from how fast they were going, he wouldn’t be surprised if it was where they were going to head up into it. From where it was positioned, Ethan wondered if Mr. Iplier had meant to drive them here. 

If what Ethan had gleaned from Mark about where he’d been left to die was correct, it was somewhere in these mountains. 

It was several hours of riding into the snow covered mountain tops of the South Alpines before Ethan even caught sight of either of them. The sun had risen by now, and hung high above him. He’d been following their tracks through the snow, how they zigzagged after one another, changing course and zipping between trees and across the little creeks that cut through the mountain side. 

Ethan was lucky that he knew these mountains at all. If his dad hadn’t owned a cabin up here, he would’ve been utterly lost in the icy wasteland. 

He kept finding holes in the snow where bullets and casings had been discarded or improperly shot, but he never found the suggestion that one of them had ever actually hit the other. 

And then he found the blood. 

There wasn’t a lot of it, but enough that it wasn’t hard to track it down now. 

Then he spotted the small clearing bisected by a river. On the other bank, Ethan could see the black horse standing near the treeline, but Chica was nowhere to be seen.  Both of the men were positioned at the edge of it. 

Mark was crumpled into the snow, Iplier standing over him, gun held towards his head. Ethan screamed out his name as he saw the blood that turned the snow a crimson pink. He drew his gun as Mr. Iplier reacted, firing over and over again at the man. 

His eyesight was beginning to blur with a mix of rage and fear, and he wasn’t able to tell if any of the shots hit, only that Iplier was limping when he leapt onto his horse and fled into the woods. Ethan rode after him, continuing to fire until he reached where Mark had been tossed into the snow.

He fell to the ground next to Mark, hearing a soft groan as the man opened his eyes the second Ethan placed a hand on his face. “Mark, oh god." His eyes fell to where Mark’s hand pressed against his stomach. “Fuck, he got you.” He saw where the blood had pooled into the snow when it slithered past his fingertips. 

“It’s a scratch,” Mark growled through gritted teeth. “Keep going, we need to track him, I’ll be fine.” 

Ethan steadied himself. “If it was just a scratch you wouldn’t sound like that.” Ethan pulled Mark’s face up to look him in the eyes, his voice sharply pointed. “Move your goddamn hand or I will make you.” 

Mark hissed under his breath, and removed his fingers. “It’s fine, Ethan.” His words fluttered with pain.

Ethan swore sharply under his breath as he saw the raw redness of it. “That is a  _ lot _ closer to a  _ bullet wound _ than a damn scratch.”

“I’ll be fine,” he repeated. “It’s not my first.”

“You’re going to fucking bleed out if we don’t deal with this now, and I’m not going to fucking let you die.” He kept his head on as straight as he could get it as he tried to form a plan. They were closer to the West Bend than he’d realized, and if he could ride fast enough... “I don’t care about vendettas and revenge right now, I just need you to survive, okay? We’ll track him down, I promise, but we need to get that thing patched up. My father had an old cabin around here, we need to get you to it.” 

“I’m…” Mark’s eyes fluttered. “Fuck, I’m…”

“Can you ride?”

“Mmm.” His eyes squeezed shut, hand wrapping around Ethan's. “Just get me there.”

“Shit.” Ethan helped Mark up, and hefted him onto Spencer’s back. He climbed on after, holding to Mark as he turned them in the direction of the cabin. Ethan hoped to god he remembered the shortcut to get there.

He’d never ridden so fast in his life. Ethan kept one hand on the reins and on hand across Mark, constantly checking that his pulse still thrummed under his finger. All of these strange feelings were bubbling up at once. The nagging ones that there was supposed to be so much more for them after this. That he  _ wanted  _ so much more after this. He hadn’t  _ felt _ since his dad died, and he’d never had feelings like these before.

He remembered their conversation in the mountains, when Mark had said settling down, if someone came along. Ethan knew that they’d agreed that this was  _ something _ , the night of temptations was enough to argue that, but after all of this, with his revenge done and feelings satiated, would it just end? 

It wasn’t something to think about now.

“We’re close,” he kept murmuring under his breath. Sometimes it felt like the reassurance was more to himself than Mark. 

As the familiar steep slope up to the cabin drew near, a light snowfall had begun, covering the continuingly cold earth in a thin blanket of white. He pulled his horse to a stop without even thinking of hitching, instead pulling Mark off of the horse and slinging his arm over the man's shoulder. Mark was still conscious, barely, but Ethan was glad for his last bits of strength. He was heavier than he looked. 

Ethan slammed the door open with his shoulder, settling Mark down into a chair before grappling around in his bag. Ethan handed him a bottle of whiskey, and the man drank it graciously before his head began to lull.

“Fuck, no, please stay conscious.” 

Ethan ran to his horse to unload the saddlebags, grabbing out anything he had on hand. Thinking as quickly as he could, he ripped out a bit of stray cloth and began packing snow inside, tucking it near his chest. As he re-entered, Mark was still somewhat conscious, hand wrapped around the bottle of whiskey. 

He pulled off what was left of Mark’s shirt, cleaning around the wound with the snow cloth before finding the small pen knife from the kit. “This is really gonna hurt, and I’m sorry, you’re gonna want to keep from screaming.” 

Ethan took the knife and began to dig into the wound. It fell just below the scar that roped across his stomach, and Ethan knew that Mark was lucky that Iplier had only shot him with a pistol. He knew a little about first aid, enough to patch up small wounds, and a brief description of how to take out a bullet from his dad, but nothing prepared him for this. 

Ethan braced himself against the leg of the chair Mark sat on, trying to flick the blade underneath where he could feel the bullet sitting in Mark's stomach. The man was shaking slightly, huffing as Ethan moved the blade tip, but he never cried out in pain entirely. 

Mark’s head began to lol slightly, and Ethan removed the blade the second before Mark almost toppled over onto him. 

“Shit, no, Mark-” He felt along Mark’s neck for his jugular, sighing slightly as he felt the barest thrum of a pulse. Ethan knew he didn’t have much time to get this thing cleaned and sealed. Mark had already lost a lot of blood.

He held up Mark with one arm, and took a deep breath, steadying his hand as he guided the knife into Mark’s open wound. This time, it caught, and he felt the bullet come loose. He guided it out with the knife, and let it clatter onto the ground.

Ethan then moved to grab the snow-packed cloth again, and rubbed it over the bloodied area with the snow that had begun to melt. Once he’d gotten it cleaned, he took the only steril bit of alcohol he owned and patted it over the area, watching Mark’s stomach seize at the pain. He looked up to see Mark’s eyes fluttering underneath closed eyelids. Ethan hoped that meant he was going to be okay.

Ethan made quick work of a needle and thread, he’d sewn through gamebirds before, and this wasn’t much different than that. He managed to get the wound somewhat well closed before adding a few layers of bandages over the top. 

Ethan started a fire in the furnace across the room. It was beginning to snow more heavily now and was getting colder by the second.  _ What was it with their bad luck with the damn snow? _

He helped Mark out of the chair and into the bed across on the other side of the room, piling him high with blankets as he checked his pulse. It was steadier now, strong enough, he hoped, to keep him alive.

Ethan pressed a kiss onto Mark’s forehead before he stood, heading towards the furnace to warm up his hands. 

Then outside he heard a noise. Ethan immediately went for his pistol, turning towards the door, but seeing no one through the window. It was thick with snow outside now, and he heard Spencer whinnying from afar.

Ethan crossed the room towards the door with quiet footsteps. He reached for the front door, swinging it open in one motion and aiming out into the clearing. 

There appeared to be no one outside. At first. 

As Ethan stepped out onto the front porch, he could make out a figure on a horse a short distance away. He aimed his gun at it, but a smooth voice interrupted him. 

It was somehow perfectly cold and warm at the same time. It rolled over him in waves, and he had to keep himself from dropping his pistol in surprise. 

“Son, I want to keep this cordial. This is between him and me.” 

And for the first time, Ethan saw Mr. Iplier’s face. 

He looked so much like Mark in a single glance, that if he hadn’t looked carefully enough at either of them for very long, he would’ve assumed they were related. They both had the dark hair, stubbly face, and scowling jaw, but Ethan had seen emotion on Mark’s face. This man didn’t look like he had felt anything in his entire life. His eyes didn’t burn warm like Mark’s, instead they festered cold, like an old sour wound.

He didn’t take his pistol off of the man’s chest for a second.


	20. The Last Stand of Mr. Iplier

In all Ethan's time working as a sheriff, even when he was still technically a deputy, no one had ever been able to catch the man who called himself Iplier. The infamous gang leader had been a notorious threat to the law long before Ethan was born, but he’d never been much more than an old wives tale. 

A man so evil he could barely feel, so riddled with murder and money-making that most agreed he’d made a deal with the devil. That, or he simply was one. 

Not much scared Ethan anymore, the deepest darkness maybe, but there was no man that on their own name alone, scared him. Except Iplier. 

When his father told him that they were tracking down the Iplier gang on the ride down to Catherina, he’d nearly turned right around and bolted out of fear. But he stayed. Sometimes he wondered if he’d made a mistake, if he’d run off maybe his dad would still be alive now. 

He’d had nightmares afterward, when he returned home with the body of a good man instead of that of a bad one. Of the man haloed in fire and flames that never seemed to hurt him. Sometimes in the dreams Ethan would shoot him, and sometimes he’d let himself be consumed by the fire. In them, he never survived, always waking up in a sweat. 

Standing here now in the frigid cold, an entire bastardization of his nightmares, he wasn’t sure if he was shaking from the cold or from fear. 

Iplier tipped his head up, trying to get better eyes on Ethan. “Let me end it like it should’ve. He’ll be out of your hair soon enough. You’ll be free of him.” 

Ethan tightened his grip on the gun. He really should’ve gotten a coat. “What makes you think I want to be free of him?”

“You’re a sheriff, right?” Iplier held up his hands, as if Ethan hadn’t seen the man unclip the buckle on his holster. “Obviously he has blackmailed you into being here, helping him murder, kill, maim. I mean, I saw what he did to poor Harvey.”

“I’m here to settle my own debts.” He waved his free hand. “And you’re all criminals anyway, I’m simply dealing justice as it’s deserved.” 

“And he’s not a criminal?”

“He’s paid his dues.” Ethan nodded slightly, more to himself than anything. “He deserves redemption.” 

“Is that what he’s told you?” The man’s voice was paper thin. “Is that what you believe is the truth?”

“I think being left on a mountain to die by people you trust is a very cruel fate.”

“It’s the only thing he really _does_ deserve. He abandoned his family when we needed him most! If only he’d listened and run the job in West Fiell like he was supposed to, we wouldn’t be in this mess.” He pressed his lips together. “We could’ve been set for life, disappear, like we were always supposed to. And yet he had to _feel_. He didn’t want to sacrifice anyone like the plan needed us to.” Iplier paused, cocking his head. “And I suppose that blind trust of his, blind love, has extended to you.” 

“He’s a good man.” Ethan should just shoot him right now. There’s no reason not to. As much as Mark might want Iplier for himself, he didn't look strong enough to hold a pen, let alone a damn pistol. 

“And I’m not? Just because I wanted what was right for the greater good?”

Ethan bared his teeth as he roared at Iplier. “Because you don’t cut open the people you pretend to care about, twist their skin until it breaks. I’m assuming that some of those scars aren’t just from fights with the opposition.” 

Iplier let out a laugh, it was almost warm, but Ethan saw his eyes. “He’s really got you to hate me that much. Got you to care about him, a _worthless_ hide of thoughts tangled up worse than fishing line?”

“I hate you, not because of how much I love him, but because of the hurt you caused me.”

Iplier settled back onto his horse. “So you do love him. I’d wondered.”

Ethan bit his lip, not even realizing that the words had left his mouth. “My feelings about him don’t matter in my hatred of you.”

He let out that same, grating laugh. “And what thorn in your side did I leave?”

“You killed my fucking father.” 

Iplier went very quiet, his eyes narrowing. “You. You’re that kid. Sheriff's kid, you-” Ethan saw Iplier’s hand go to his shoulder. “You left quite a bit of buckshot in my arm, son.” 

“I plan to unload a lot more into your heart.” 

“Cocky,” Iplier’s tone was no longer so friendly. “But tell me, if you manage to kill me, will he ever forgive you? Taking away his prize kill?” He sneered at the last two words.

“I think he’ll understand.” 

Ethan fired two shots into Iplier’s chest, and the man grapsed for his reins, his horse stumbling back with him. “You fucking _bastard_.” Ethan sprinted for the side of the house, ducking behind the wall as several shots splintered the glass in the window. 

“I’ll kill you for that!” 

He leapt onto Spencer’s back, drawing his rifle from the saddle of his horse as he heard Iplier turn around the corner, his horse moving slowly forward. Ethan aimed it where he could and fired, hearing the sickening sound of bullets ripping through flesh. 

Iplier’s horse reared back, threatening to throw the man before he got control of it. He turned his horse on instinct, and the animal took off into the snowy wasteland. Ethan followed the best he could, but Iplier’s horse was fast, and the snow was replacing itself by the minute. 

The hoofprints would eventually get lost in the snow if he didn’t keep moving. 

He didn’t quite know where Iplier was taking them, but he could see his figure in the distance, still riding. They continued up the slopes, through forests and fields, until Ethan no longer had to track just from the prints left behind, because of the stains of red in the snow. 

The snow had let up a little now, enough for him to be able to tell that they were nearing the peak of the mountain. He would catch sight of the tail of Iplier’s horse, but he could never track it well enough to fire a few rounds into it. 

Ethan spurred Spencer on until he turned up a particularly steep mountainside, and he saw two shapes in the distance, fallen into the snow. 

He drew close, realizing that Iplier’s horse now lay, bleeding and screaming, in the snow. The other form crawled away a few feet ahead. 

Ethan drew only a knife and his pistol from Spencer’s saddle, settling down into the snow. It crunched underfoot, but the chill no longer hit him. He approached the horse first, plunging the knife into its throat to end the misery it thrashed about in. Ethan waited until it stilled before removing the blade, stalking towards the man struggling on the ground.

He’d crawled maybe fifteen feet away from the horse, dragging an uneven trail of blood in his wake. Iplier’s fingers were red as they clawed at the snow, crawling away in a mixture of fear and desperation. 

Ethan gripped the man by the scruff of his coat, throwing him onto his back with a strength Ethan didn’t know he had. It felt like all of the fear, the anger, the rage he’d pushed down for years had decided that this was the moment to surface. 

“Please,” Iplier’s lips and teeth were stained red. His tongue sinking in a pool of blood that began to dribble down the corners of his mouth. “Not this way.”

Ethan hefted Iplier up by his collar to look him in the eyes. “Is that what he said, Iplier? When you left Mark up here, when you killed my father, did they beg for mercy?” 

Iplier didn’t answer as Ethan slashed the blade against his cheek, letting more ruby redness trickle down into the snow. “How have your victims begged you, Iplier? How have they asked you over and over again for a forgiveness you denied them?” 

“I’m...sorry.”

“You don’t have to lie now.” Ethan threw the man down onto the ground. He sliced Iplier’s shirt clean off with a movement of his blade. “You can repent, beg for forgiveness, but I won’t hear it.”

“I have been forgiving!” Iplier babbled. “I’ve forgiven! I’ve given kindness, I am not a bad man! The law! The law has made you see the wrong side of the world.”

“Tell me, how did you do it?” Ethan didn’t look up from the skin of Iplier’s stomach. It was faintly scared, but not as badly as Mark’s, with the slight spongy fat and worn out muscle of age. “How did you make those marks so that it turned to rope on his skin?” 

“No-”

“Did you cut like this?” Ethan almost caught himself savoring the screams. “Or like this?” He could barely breathe as the man begged him, pleading, over and over to stop what he was doing. Ethan understood what Mark had done to Harvey now, _why_ he’d done it. How he’d pushed past the sick that normally boiled in his stomach at the thought of flesh turned raw, the pinkish red of tendon and sinew. “He loved you, you know. Like his own damn father. I think he might’ve died for you once.” 

“He betrayed-”

“I told you that you didn’t have to lie.” Ethan cut a particularly large swipe into Iplier’s skin. “You got rid of him because he wouldn’t follow orders.” 

“He would’ve-” Then Iplier fell very quiet. He wasn’t dead yet, Ethan could feel the pump of his heart under his skin. Ethan cut into him again, and the man tensed, but didn’t speak. His words were hoarse and wheezed. Ethan wouldn’t be surprised if his shots had punctured a lung, maybe damaged even more. 

If the knife didn’t kill him, he would bleed out eventually. Maybe even die from the pain.

“I knew that he would take my place.” His words were breathier now. “I knew that he would _tarnish_ my legacy. It’s why I made the plan, the bank job. I was going to kill him there, shoot him while we were alone...but he figured out that I’d accounted for less lives going out than in.” Ethan moved his knife with more precision than before, slicing down along the man’s legs. His own wounds still stung, thinking about them now. 

“He was always too good. He was going to tell the others, have me shown for my true colors, he said he’d prove I only lived for myself.” Iplier coughed up more blood, turning his head to let it spill deeper into the snow. “And he wasn’t wrong. It’s why I’m the only one left.” Iplier laughed, hacking and bright, spilling with blood. “It’s right that I’ll be the last one of the gang. The way it should be.”

Ethan leaned back from the man. “Except for Mark.”

Iplier laughed even louder now. “He would never count.”

“And Trout-Mouth, of course.”

“What?” Iplier’s face went pale. “But-”

“How do you know Mark killed everyone when we were in the mountains?” Ethan whistled for his horse. 

“He would've had to have, they-” Iplier struggled, and then screamed. “My legs, fuck, my arms, what the hell did you do to me?”

Ethan looked up as he heard a sound in the sky. A pair of birds circled high in the sky. “I cut you pretty good. A little extra payback for what your members in the mountains did to me.” He shook his head. “Once, the great Iplier, now, you’ll be food for buzzards.” 

Ethan grasped the knife with two hands, and Iplier screeched. “He’ll never forgive you for this! You’ll never forget my face, this pain will come back to you, and your end won’t be pretty. I have allies in higher places! They’ll kill you for this!” 

“This is for my father, for Mark.” 

Iplier screamed once more before Ethan brought the knife down into his throat. 

And then the mountain grew very quiet. 

Ethan didn’t know when he started to realize what it was he’d done, just that it was somewhere between the edge of the mountain and the road back to the cabin. Eventually he pulled Spencer to a halt, stumbling off to throw up behind a tree. He retched and retched until his mouth stung with bile, and his stomach burning from tension it took to keep him upright. 

Ethan’s eyes were hot as he came upon the cabin, seeing Mark standing on the front porch. He was wrapped up with bandages, his chest bare besides where they were tight against his skin. The man was leaned against the post that held up the bit of roof above him, his hand tight on a rifle.

Ethan rode Spencer to the front of the cabin, almost falling off of him as he stepped down into the snow. His skin was feverishly cold now, the adrenaline not doing much now to protect him from the frigid air. He lifted his head to look Mark in the face, who looked down at him with an unreadable expression. In a second, all of the scolding about being out of bed, and the anxious tension in Mark's body seemed to pass between them.

Ethan’s lip quivered, “I’m sorry, he was yours-” He fell to his knees, beginning to sob. “Oh god, what have I done?” Ethan’s hands were red, his clothing streaked with gore, all he could smell was blood. "I've never killed someone like _that_ before, fuck, I-"

Then, warmth.

A pair of hands lifted him from the ground and into an embrace. “Is he dead?” The whispered question is warm against his ear. Ethan nodded his head, burying his face into the crook of Mark’s chest. “Did he suffer?”

Ethan pulled back to look into Mark’s eyes. “Horribly. I did what you did. To Harvey. What they did to me. I cut him so that your scars would be the same.” His lip quivered again and he felt another round of sobs plague him. “I’m sorry, I know he was yours to kill, I know what that would’ve meant to you, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Mark closed his eyes, letting out a long sigh. “No. He was rightfully yours.” He pressed his lips to Ethan’s forehead, Ethan furrowed his eyebrows as silent tears streamed down his face. 

“What?” 

“I had my chance, I went toe-to-toe with him, and if it hadn’t been for you, I would be dead right now.” Mark held him by the shoulders. “He was yours to kill all along it seems. For your dad, for the grief you were caused.”

“And you’re okay with that?”

He paused for a moment before nodding, smiling slightly. “Yeah. I think so.” Mark squeezed Ethan’s shoulder. “Let’s get you cleaned up, alright?” 

Mark headed to walk up the stairs when Ethan caught his arm. “I think I love you.” He saw Mark freeze, standing stock straight, and Ethan started to ramble. “And I wanted you to know because I don’t want this to be it. I don’t think I could continue on in a world where I wake up and you’re not there.” His breathing rattled in his chest. “I like you more than I meant to.” 

Mark’s face was unreadable, and Ethan worried for a second that he’d made the wrong choice. 

“Mark?” He realized then that the man was on the verge of crying. “Hey!” Ethan grasped his hand, “I’m here.”

“I know,” Mark wiped his eyes. “I’m fine, it’s just...I didn’t think anyone could ever love me like that.”

He massaged the creases in Mark’s palm. “Like what?” 

“For real,” Mark laughed through his tears. He squeezed Ethan’s hand back tightly. 

“So, uh, did you mean what you said about settling down?” Ethan felt his face warm slightly. “Ranching, farming, I don’t know, something together?”

“As long as it’s with you-” Mark’s eyes were warm now, truly warm. The anger had burned away, replaced with something stronger. A warmth that could melt cold and mend broken things if it tried. “For you, I’d do anything.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all for reading! <3  
> i have loved reading all of your comments and messages, and gosh y'all make me blush from your kindness!! though this is the technical end to the fic, I may be posting a small epilogue chapter later, depending on how i'm feeling about how it turns out.  
> <33333  
> \- ur favorite writing cryptid


	21. Epilogue

They were to be married in late spring. 

It had been two years since the death of Iplier, almost coming up on three in the dawning months. They’d returned home to Ethan’s town battered and tired, but full of an ambition and love that Ethan had never truly felt before.

His deputy understood when he set down his hat and badge and declared that he was done working as the law, especially when Mark darkened the door behind him.

With the bits of proof they could carry, they were paid handsomely for single handedly taking down the Iplier gang. The head constable didn’t even seem to blink an eye when Mark tipped his hat to the man before delivering the half frozen body of Iplier, and provided the locations to the rest of the bodies. 

They bought a small ranch just outside of the town Ethan had grown up in, Mark roping cattle and Ethan helping where he could, but mostly managing the books. They built the place with their own two hands, hiring ranch hands that passed through town down on their luck. 

Mark eventually did teach Ethan how to hunt properly, and the two celebrated their first winter at the ranch with enough venison to last a lifetime. Not that they needed it with all of the meat and money their cattle brought in, but it was an old love that Ethan knew he'd never be able to shake.

Their days were filled with stolen morning kisses and long nights leaning against one another on the porch looking at stars. It wasn’t even until the start of their second summer that Mark even mentioned commiting for real. Ethan knew they wouldn’t be able to get any official paperwork or anything, but the thought of calling somebody his own for the rest of his life made his stomach churn with excitement.

He told Mark they should wait until next spring, when the snow melted and they could make the trek to his father’s final resting place. It was sat under a tree that always looked its best in spring, and Ethan didn’t want it to be anything other than perfect.

Somewhere into late summer a familiar face appeared at their door, offering his services in exchange for some money. Gabe Trout-Mouth had apparently run into some of the same problems Mark had when he turned away from his roots. It was hard to get work when you had such a vast prize on your head.

It seemed that the time had softened Mark, as he didn’t try to kill Gabe on sight. It didn’t mean that the two were any friendly either, but Gabe worked his way into good graces, and it wasn’t long until winter came, and Mark and Gabe were out hunting and foraging in the woods near the ranch. 

Sometime in the late winter, Gabe came to the two separately, and presented them each with a polished wooden ring.

“A gift,” he’d smiled mysteriously like he always did. “For the spring.” 

They packed for the trip, leaving Gabe to watch the cattle before heading up the little mountain. 

“Ready?” Mark asked with a smile as he pulled on Chica’s reins. She was older now, saved from the snow after she’d run off on that fateful day, and snuffled at the ground as Mark coaxed her up a rocky path.

“As I’ll ever be,” Ethan felt almost giddy as he answered. 

The two dismounted their horses, and Ethan’s face warmed as Mark took his hand. No matter how long they’d been together, Mark could always find a way to make him feel like they were touching for the first time. They climbed the hill together, the sunlight beginning to fade as it glinted through the newly budding leaves of the tree. 

A headstone sat next to the trunk, and Ethan let go of Mark’s hand as he walked to it. He placed a hand against the stone, and smiled, feeling his eyes prickle with tears. A chill made its way down his spine, and he closed his eyes to keep himself from crying. “Thanks father,” he whispered. “For everything you ever molded me to become.” 

He crossed under the tree to where Mark stood underneath it on the other side. In his eyes, he could see that youthful glow that had only returned to him recently. Ethan had seen it for the first time when they'd slept in their own home for the first time, and he never wanted to see Mark without that expression again. It was so full of love and light that Ethan thought it might make Mark burst. 

Ethan pulled the ring from his pocket, and Mark laughed as he did the same. “He gave you one too?” He hummed with that softening warmth. 

Mark took his hand, pushing the ring onto his finger, before Ethan did the same. He looked up, and bit his lip. Ethan took his love’s face in his hands and smiled.  A fingertip pressed into the back of Ethan’s palm, and he leaned forward to press their heads together. “Through feast through fame.”

“Through dark and light.”

“Consider me yours, forever.” 

“I love you,” He opened his eyes to see Mark’s face in front of him. “Those words never get old, do they?”

Ethan felt the tears spill over finally.  _ True, pure adoration. Love enough to write a thousand stories.  _ A happiness he had thought he’d lost. “Never.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ALL OF YOU ARE SO FREAKING SWEET!!!!! so i had to do a little epilogue chapter to round it all out for y'all :>  
> also a lot of you said that you'd wanted more?? are you really in for a long form fic like that???   
> thank you ALL for the absolutely amazing messages, it warmed my heart reading them this morning!  
> i'll be back soon with some more interesting aus! <3 love you all!! stay safe!!

**Author's Note:**

> If you're interested in tipping, you can find me @ ko-fi.com/theecryptiid!


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